


Actions Speak Louder Than

by FarenMaddox



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gift Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-19
Updated: 2012-11-18
Packaged: 2017-11-19 00:58:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/567247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FarenMaddox/pseuds/FarenMaddox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco can't be what the Dark Lords wants, and he gives up everything to save a man he was supposed to torture. He didn't expect Charlie to stand beside him while he comes to terms with what he's lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Draco

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Magicae](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Magicae).



> This was written for Magicae, who purchased in a LiveJournal auction to raise money for tsunami relief for Japan in 2011.

Draco stared down with a horror that approached numbness as the man thrashed on the floor at his aunt's feet. The only thought his dumbstruck mind produced with any clarity was

_I shouldn't be seeing this. I'm only sixteen._

 

* * *

 

The Dark Lord had not been coy about what he wanted. _"I want information on Potter immediately. Where is he and how do I get to him?"_

It was common knowledge that Harry Potter lived with Muggles during the summer, and Snape was able to supply the necessary details there: the Muggles were his mother's relatives, they were useless, but the home was devastatingly well-protected. (Of course it was—was Draco the only one who didn't underestimate Professor Dumbledore?)

As for where Potter was likely to be when he wasn't with the Muggles: that was the first time that Draco had met Lord Voldemort. His father had served for years, but Draco had never been involved until the incident at the Ministry had left Lucius desperate to curry favour and get back into his inner circle. He'd brought Draco to him like he was a gift. Draco had protested—loudly, plainly—that he hated Potter and didn't know anything useful. He'd protested until Father, who had never lifted a hand in violence to Draco, grabbed him under his arm and by the hair on his neck, and had marched him into the meeting with a hissed promise of worse to come if Draco didn't conduct himself properly as a Malfoy.

He'd already been stunned by Father's behaviour when he'd been forced into that room, but he'd been completely tongue-tied when those red eyes looked at him. The Dark Lord was (less than, more than, not) human. Being looked at by him was akin to finding yourself under the eyes of a dragon trying to decide how hungry it was. He looked at Draco as if he was contemplating all the ways he could cause him pain.

"Does the boy not speak, Lucius?" The murmur was soft and polite, but his eyes were as cold and empty and glittering as volcanic glass, and Draco suddenly knew why Father was terrified and desperate. He felt cold but he calmed himself down. He only needed to conduct himself as a Malfoy to get through this. It was a son's duty to his father.

He bent his head in a slight bow, tried to arrange his face into some semblance of composure, and took a deep and careful breath.

"I beg your pardon, my lord," he murmured, trying to soften his voice as the Dark Lord had done. "In your presence I thought I should wait for you to speak first."

They were old ways, unpracticed now for the most part, but Draco knew a few of the archaic rules. When you were with someone more powerful or from older blood, you did not speak until spoken to. Draco had never seen cause to follow that rule before now (no one was from older blood or money or not worth his time if they were). He had no idea how old the Dark Lord's bloodline might be (ancient, surely, a direct link to Slytherin himself), but Father's life was in those pale, bone-white hands.

The Dark Lord smiled and seemed pleased, although the sight of those thin pale lips pressing together was more horrible than anything else on his skeletal face. It almost broke Draco's composure, so he lowered his head again to hide his features. He had almost made a mistake and he had to calm his suddenly racing heart. There could be no mistakes—a Malfoy did not make mistakes (but they must, for he must have made some to be here now, where he did not want to be). He certainly could not make a mistake in this poisonous presence.

"Thank you, Draco," he said, and there was no sincerity in his voice. There was nothing in his voice. Draco wondered almost wildly if there was nothing in _him_ , if his insides were as white and stark and unnatural as his appearance, as bleached of all signs of humanity.

"Do you know why you are here?"

A hint of uncertainty crept into him. Wasn't that obvious? "You had asked for information about Harry Potter, my lord."

There was something glittering in those eyes that were like red glass (just as transparent, just as lifeless) that made a tight knot of sickness begin to build in his belly. The hair on his neck was prickling.

"Do you think you can help me, Draco?"

There was only one right answer, surely, now that he had been brought into his presence—but that tight coil of nausea and the sweat on his forehead and the hair standing on end insisted that there _was_ no right answer. Something had gone horribly wrong before he'd ever walked through the door.

"I hope I can, my lord."

His head jerked to one side and he stumbled, off-balance without knowing why. His breath had caught in his throat; he remembered to suck it in when he felt a stinging in his cheek. His face burned and began to throb as he straightened up again. He'd been struck, he realized with a sense of disbelief. The Dark Lord had hit him in the face. Draco wanted to pull his wand and curse him, he wanted to shout, he wanted to demand an apology . . .

"My lord?" he squeezed out. It was folly to fight back. It grated on him (someone had _dared_ to _strike_ him, Draco Malfoy) but he had to try to control himself.

"Then why did you not come to me sooner?" the Dark Lord hissed.

That coil was spreading, filling him with sickness, and he could taste the bile in his throat. There _was_ something lurking behind the blank eyes, and that something was a terrible anger. Draco was in trouble. He hadn't known he was. Now it was rapidly approaching that moment of _too late_.

"I asked for information weeks ago. Tell me, Draco, why are you here only now?"

He didn't know what to say. His face jerked to the side again. Another blow. This was utterly humiliating.

"Perhaps you don't wish to serve me. Perhaps you don't fear me. Is that it?"

"No, my lord," he began (yes, that's it, of course that's it) but he received another strike that cut him off.

"You will," the Dark Lord vowed, eyes and face alight with something too happy for this violent situation. He swallowed down his sickness and tried valiantly to say something to stop this. He had a silver tongue that could lessen the consequence of any bad situation, he knew and everyone knew it (except when it came to Harry Potter, so he should have known better) so all he had to do was say something clever.

"I do, my lord," he said in a shaky voice. Subservience: this man (creature) wanted subservience. "I feared that what I know about him was not worth your time."

There. That would appeal to him, wouldn't it? He'd calm down, and then Father would step in and stop this. Father wouldn't just _let_ someone hit him like this or humiliate him like this, because he had said so many times that a Malfoy was better than everyone else.

He was struck again.

"It is not for you to decide such things," the Dark Lord said, wrapping a cold bony hand around his jaw and making Draco look into his eyes. Draco's heart was beating so wildly and his stomach was twisting with such sickness that he was honestly terrified that he would throw up on this figure who was steadily destroying what Draco had thought was truth. "Is it?" he hissed, his terrible long nails digging into the skin of Draco's cheeks.

He closed his eyes and waited for Father. But Father didn't come. Father stood there looking ill and frightened, and Draco finally began to understand what it meant to have a master.

"If you have something to tell me, then speak."

This man was taking over everything. The Dark Lord was making Malfoy Manor into what he wanted it to be, just like he would eventually make the world. This place was not Draco's home anymore, filled with angry shouting and breaking glass when things went wrong, filled with subservience instead of pride, and whispers of fear running through the walls that made him lie awake at night as though fear was something he could actually hear.

Draco could not be who he was. He was supposed to accept these blows as what he deserved and do as he was asked. Father allowed these things: Father, whose words had always been about pride and decorum and blood and honour. And the hand around his face would not let him look away from it, even though he closed his eyes and tried to.

So he began to speak. All he had to give were a few pathetic scraps of information about the Weasley family and Hermione Granger. But he babbled those scraps out as if his life depended on them. (Didn't it? The Dark Lord killed. . .)

No one in that room knew it yet, but that that first encounter with the Dark Lord was already the beginning of the end. Draco himself had no idea that something was already growing beneath his sick dread of his future (it's foolish to listen to those tiny voices whispering in your head)—he was only concerned about surviving. Surviving this man and this era that was being ushered in. It would take all the strength he had, and then he would have to find more strength somewhere. Because after that first encounter, the Dark Lord wanted him punished for his pride, and he wanted him to learn what it meant to be a Death Eater.

They gave him to his Aunt Bellatrix.

 

* * *

 

The man's back arched uncontrollably—he would have rolled onto his side if his strong, scarred arms weren't spasming and rocking him back and forth. He did not scream. Aunt Bella had said she would make him scream and he'd said she wouldn't. They were both determined to be right. He'd bitten through his own lip and blood was flowing down his chin and his eyes (blue eyes) were hard and glittering as gems—

 _Just scream_ , Draco thought desperately. _Give her what she wants. Please just scream._

 

* * *

 

At first, it had been simple enough. Aunt Bella was insane, but easy enough to placate. Draco only had to listen to her half-coherent pureblood ranting (if _this_ was what the Muggle-lovers heard, then no wonder they didn't want to listen) and praise the Dark Lord until it had become a kind of ritual, a mantra. Until he barely heard the words either of them were saying, because the only thing that mattered was that the Dark Lord was (not) omniscient, was (never could be) omnipotent.

He never thought to ask Mother for help, to get him out of this twisted apprenticeship to her sister. Father could do nothing, so how could Mother help? Had she ever once spoken a happy word about Aunt Bella or given any indication that she could be controlled? Draco stopped thinking that anyone would help him. He had his silver tongue, and it was all he could rely on.

When the pain came, Draco wasn't surprised. It was his sadistic, broken aunt and of course there would be pain. In truth, he'd been more afraid before that, tensed and waiting for it to come at any moment. When she began, he didn't have walk around and even sleep with his shoulders hunched in anticipation anymore.

Not that it made it any easier to bear.

She'd said his _Cruciatus_ wouldn't be any good if he didn't know what it felt like. That might even be true, but Draco heard what she didn't say—she hated Lucius and she liked pain, and torturing Draco was her idea of entertainment. (They were right to lock up people like her, the Death Eaters sometimes deserved what the other side did to them.) Two hours under her wand led to two days of being unable to get out of bed. It was not to teach him to cast _Crucio_ no matter what she said, it was to teach him fear and humility and pain. He learned them. She liked screaming. She would pause for a few minutes if she liked the way you screamed. So he threw away whatever sense of shame he still had and screamed for her.

He couldn't even speak afterward and that panicked him like nothing else had in the horror his life had become. If he couldn't placate her (our Lord is great, his ways will save us, blahblahblah) how would he survive her tutelage?

That was the moment he'd wanted to go to his mother and beg for protection. He was terrified and there was nowhere else to go. Draco had never been the sort of person to ask for help. He would do it on his own unless he couldn't, and if he couldn't he'd beg forgiveness, not aid. (Woken up after a nightmare at six years old and had read to himself aloud rather than disturb his parents.) But now he wished there was something she could do. There wasn't. There wasn't anything. She was a prisoner of that unsuspected weakness of Father's just like he was. She was useless to him now—and hadn't she always been? She was powerless, even though she was smart and as lovely as a china doll. (And just as breakable.)

Draco had carefully hidden so much of himself away from his family, but he was afraid now, afraid that it would all come spilling out of him, falling onto his aunt's eager ears as he thrashed on the floor so he could learn about pain—

Maybe it was good that he lost his voice during the worst of it.

 

* * *

 

"Tell me what you know!" she was shouting at him.

"How many times do I have to tell you!" he was shouting back. "I don't know anything!"

"You're lying!" she shrieked hysterically. Draco almost felt sympathy for her. Almost. A colossal mistake like capturing the wrong person would lead to the Dark Lord's wrath. Draco had not yet felt the Dark Lord's wrath, but he could imagine it. It was only too easy. He'd _seen_ what Harry Potter looked like after the encounters between the two of them and he'd _seen_ the dead, cold face of Cedric Diggory.

"I don't _live_ there, you daft bitch!" he cried out hoarsely. He hadn't been screaming, but the effort not to was costing him his voice. It was a lovely voice, too, low in timbre and with a hint of an accent he'd picked up from years living abroad. Now that the pain had stopped for a moment, he was laying quite still and panting for air, his broad chest rising and falling unevenly. The cords of muscle in his arms and the power in his wide shoulders did nothing for him now. Draco knew. Aunt Bella's wand was merciless and it didn't matter how strong you were.

Aunt Bella suddenly knelt down and straddled the man's waist, making sickness stab at Draco's stomach. It seemed to do the same thing to him, because his face twisted in disgust and fury and he tried to buck her off. But his muscles were quivering and weak, and she was leaning over him and brushing his face with her hair.

"Just tell me how to get inside," she said in a breathy voice. "Tell me how to get past your wards."

His lip twisted. "No."

Her hand, like a claw, slid up his freckled cheek. "Please?" Draco thought he would throw up.

"You honestly think this is going to work on me? You're not big on gathering intelligence beforehand, are you?"

She looked startled. The wand poking into his chest and the claw on his cheek were frozen.

"Even if I _did_ like women, a little lap dance isn't going to make me forget you're a Death Eater and you've been torturing me," he snorted. "But since I prefer men, it's a moot point."

Aunt Bella looked so incredibly shocked for a moment that Draco got the insane urge to laugh. Then she turned her head and looked right at him, and he felt sickness return like a punch in the gut. Did she _know_?

 

* * *

 

Draco had always known he shouldn't be thinking of his playmates the way he did, and so he never said anything about it. Blaise and Theo were boys, and boys weren't supposed to wonder about kissing each other when they grew up. He thought about kissing a girl, but it would be like kissing Mummy, wouldn't it? He did that all the time. Kissing a boy would be different.

He had never found a reason or the proper time to break his silence, even after he started school. Even after meeting Harry Potter. It was true that he hated that boy and felt an intense amount of rivalry. But as they'd gotten older, some of his fury had become desperate in its rejection. He hated Potter's attitude and he hated his smug, entirely-too-sculpted-for-a-boy face, but . . . Potter spent a lot of time flying and running around getting into trouble. He had the kind of body that was rare on a schoolboy of fifteen, and Draco wanted that and so he hated Potter even more. Granted, when Draco's hormones were raging, he'd have taken damn near any boy who played Quid ditch (damn near any boy at all, some days)—but it made him angry to feel it so much for an enemy. He wanted control over his desires. If he couldn't have something then he didn't _want_ to want it.

Who was there that he could have spoken to about what he felt? His friends barely deserved the title. Pansy was the only one who might have accepted him for who he was, but she was too thoughtless to be trusted to keep it to herself and too likely to be vengeful about his disinterest in her.

No, Draco was alone. He'd always been alone. It had taken him a long time to do so much as recognize his desires for what they were. He'd never had the chance to act on them. Despaired that he ever would. He was a Malfoy, and he had his duties to think of, after all.

He sometimes wondered if Mother knew. If perhaps she knew it instinctively because Draco was hers. There had been one particular time in which she'd been saying something about how he'd grow up and get married and have children of his own: her hand had fallen on his cheek, and her fingers were warmer than he had expected. Her smile had been soft and fragile and twisted when she said,

"I'm sorry."

"What are you sorry for?" he'd muttered.

"It's not what you want, but it's what you have to do."

"What are you talking about?" he'd asked scornfully, proud of his voice. His voice didn't tell anyone what was really happening. Didn't say that his heart had started pounding and his stomach had started twisting and sweat was forming on his hairline.

"Nothing," she'd answered, sliding her hand away and letting her smile go with it. "I love you, Draco."

She'd left him alone after that. But Draco had always wondered after that if she'd known about him all along.

 

* * *

 

"Come here, Draco."

"I, er, Aunt Bella, why, I, why would you—"

"I said come here. Have you forgotten the rules already? _Crucio!_ "

Draco collapsed to the floor, feeling the fire under his skin and clamping his lips down on his pain. He wouldn't scream this time. He wouldn't. The pain was so awful because it never changed, never ebbed or flowed but remained a constant agony that made you forget time and space and self— He groaned, but he did not scream.

She released him after only a moment, and he stumbled to his feet and hurried quickly to her side. He shouldn't have needed the reminder, not after what she'd already done to him. She'd wrested screams for mercy from his lips only a couple of weeks ago. His job was not to ask questions, it was to obey. Obey so she didn't hurt him. So she didn't tell Father or the Dark Lord that he'd failed. So she didn't get permission to punish him further or, worse, to turn him over to that evil creature with the empty glass eyes.

"Well? Get the answers we seek."

Draco was still stuck on how she _knew_. He never would have thought Mother would betray him like this, but Bellatrix Lestrange was capable of hurting anyone. Perhaps even her own sister.

"Why would you ask me?" he asked, almost laughing, trying to pretend this was absurd instead of terrifying.

"Because you're a boy," she said, as though she thought him completely stupid. "Didn't you just hear him say he prefers that?"

"But Aunt Bella . . ." he trailed off, gesturing at the man on the floor whose face _dared_ Draco to straddle him and see what happened. Was she stupid as well as mad? "I wouldn't even know . . ."

"Oh, it's easy," she huffed. "Just pretend he's whatever little slut of a girl you're dating, and drive him mad for you. Men will say anything when they—"

"Aunt, please!" he burst out as he saw the man scowl. "I've never—er." (But she didn't know, she hadn't guessed the truth, he was still safe from the shame of Aunt Bella dragging him before his father and outing him, at least.)

"You didn't tell me you're a virgin," she said, sounding disgusted. "Aren't you sixteen?"

Those blue, blue eyes were looking increasingly less defiant and increasingly more annoyed. Draco wanted to crawl into a hole and die. This was a new sort of torture.

"I don't know if you've forgotten, but you're supposed to be torturing me for information," the man drawled. "Merlin's pants, but you're inept. Are you a new recruit?"

Aunt Bella shrieked and lifted her wand. "How _dare_ you? _Crucio_!"

The man bit down on his already bloody lip. His muscles jerked beneath his skin, and Draco was caught in watching the slow slide of crimson across the freckles on his cheek. He was braver than he had any right to be and Draco knew that it wouldn't matter, in the end. She'd break him eventually. If she couldn't there would be someone else who could.

Would he die, here on the floor, defying Aunt Bella with his last breath?

As soon as Draco had the thought, he could not make it go away. He could see how the ruddy, healthy skin would go pale and waxy. The blue eyes would fade. The straining muscles would fall limp. And there would be a grave. It would say _Charles Weasley_ and below that _Braver than he had any right to be_ and below that would be dates that Draco didn't know. He should know that much, shouldn't he? There ought to be a rule: you couldn't murder someone if you didn't know how old they were.

"I'm not going to talk," the man panted, "so you might as just kill me now."

Draco jerked when he heard that defiance, wanting to stop those words somehow. But Aunt Bella just leaned over him with her dancing mad eyes.

"How do you know I won't?" He shrugged. Draco was surprised that he still had that much control left after what his body had been going through. "I'd rather die than tell you how to hurt my family. So it's up to you." He smirked at her. "If it's all the same, though, can you make sure my mother gets my body?" Draco's mind conjured up another image, this one of Molly Weasley. She would be sitting in a rocking chair when she heard the news, and she would be knitting one of those ghastly sweaters she was always sending to her kids. Someone would say _"Charlie is dead"_ and she would hunch over her wool and sob. Draco pictured it all and fought to keep from throwing up or from screaming. He could even see now what would happen if he was the one who was dead. His own mother would be drawing a sketch from her bedroom window, and she would cry just like that. If it were ever Draco who died, Mother would shrivel up and sob just that way, because what else did she have left but him?

 

* * *

 

It had been only one day before they had captured Charles Weasley and entered this room. His mother's hand had fallen on his arm, and he'd been afraid when he looked into her eyes and saw the pain in them.

"Draco, my darling," Narcissa had whispered, afraid of being overheard. "This is killing you. I want you to leave."

"Leave?" he had repeated dumbly.

"I would rather die than see you become what they want you to be. You're still my baby . . . If you ever get the chance, then run, Draco. Do you understand?"

What was there to say but that he did? She let her hand fall from his arm, and he went on his way feeling more lost than ever.

 

* * *

 

The thought of Molly Weasley's tears had become too much for Draco to bear. She was a mother, too, and this was her baby with blood running down his chin. Why did mothers have to suffer for what the Dark Lord wanted? Why did it have to be them?

Weasley's eyes (beautiful, brilliant blue like the open sky) looked into his, and he said it quite soberly. "You'll make sure, won't you? Make sure my mother gets my body."

Draco didn't think. He couldn't think, or at least couldn't stop that long because Aunt Bellatrix would figure out what he meant to do any moment. The only reason she didn't immediately guess what Draco meant by dropping to his knees beside their prisoner: it was completely mad of him. It was unpredictable and it was guaranteed to hurt him somehow. She likely didn't know that Father had taught Draco to do something he was legally too young to perform.

Draco was doing it anyway.

He grabbed hold of Weasley's arm, and closed his eyes, and prayed in the simple hope that something was listening to his desperation.

CRACK!

Anyone was allowed to Apparate and Disapparate from Malfoy Manor freely, even their enemies. But they all knew better. The ward was sadistic and special and Draco didn't know whose idea it was. He only knew that it was the most cruel thing imaginable.

To Apparate from Malfoy Manor, you had to go past the ward.

The ward took from you whatever you thought most important.

Draco took hold of Charles Weasley's arm and rescued him for the sake of Molly Weasley, and Draco knew as he landed on the hard cobblestone street of Diagon Alley that he'd killed Narcissa with his actions.

He just wished he'd had someplace better to take them. That was the only thought that came to him as he rolled over onto his side on the cold stones to try to hide his face. He couldn't think about anything else just now. He wouldn't be welcome at Hogwarts and he had no other place he considered safe.

Weasley was sitting up, his arms trembling as he pushed himself, and looked around him in amazement.

"Why did you bring me here?" he asked.

Draco twitched, and said nothing.

"Is this . . . Did you just _save_ me?"

He remained silent.

"They told me about the ward. Does this mean you took the punishment for both of us to leave?"

He hadn't truly thought of that. He hadn't even realized that by using Side-Along, he was protecting Weasley from the ward. But he supposed that was a good thing. Inevitably, Charlie would lose someone from his family as the thing that was most important to him, and that would defeat Draco's whole purpose.

"Why did you . . .?" Charlie trailed off. Draco could feel the man's eyes on his back.

What was there to say? The idea of telling this man that it made Draco sad to picture his dumpy mother crying over a pile of yarn— he could never say that. What else could he say? That no matter how you looked at it, Charles Weasley was incredibly attractive and it would be a shame for the world to lose him? No. No, Draco could not say that either. So he said nothing at all.

"Do you have anyplace to go?" Weasley asked him.

No. He had nothing. Less than nothing. He'd killed his mother. She was the only thing still important to him, so he knew he'd lost her when he'd gone past the wards. He didn't want to say any of these things to the handsome stranger at his back.

"All right. Just give me a minute," Weasley muttered, and Draco heard him taking deep breaths. In truth, Draco was surprised that the man could even manage to sit up. He'd lasted longer than Draco had and hadn't screamed once. He must be exhausted and every nerve must be causing him agony. "Okay. I think I can—"

He placed his hand on Draco's back, and Draco shuddered.

CRACK!

"Oh, Merlin, I did it," he heard him moan.

He'd closed his eyes when the world began to spin sickeningly around him and he didn't want to open them now. The cold stone beneath his cheek had been replaced by cool grass. The smell of owl shit and coal smoke had been replaced by something infinitely clean that Draco could only identify as fresh air. He heard a chicken clucking.

Footsteps pounded nearby. He still didn't want to look.

"Who's there?"

"What's happened?"

"Charlie!"

The feminine shriek sounded like the girl Weasley. Oh. Wonderful. The man had brought them to his family's home. Draco had begun to suspect he didn't know how to get past the wards or he'd have broken and told Aunt Bella. But he knew and he'd kept his silence. He was so maddeningly, recklessly strong.

It was too bad he'd brought Draco with him. Diagon Alley would have been safer for him than the Weasley's home.

"Charlie's here!"

"Charlie, are you all right?"

Then came the voice he knew very well. "Malfoy!" it cried out in shock, and he hunched his shoulders to prepare for the worst.

"Put your wand away, Harry," Weasley said in an exhausted voice. "He's just saved my life."

There was a stunned silence in which all Draco could hear was the chickens clucking. He finally just let himself pass out.

 

* * *

 

" _. . . okay? You could have been . . ."_

" _. . . gotten so skinny . . . slept since term ended? . . . looks like hell . . ."_

" _. . . should have seen . . . tortured him, too . . ."_

" _. . . so glad you're safe . . ."_

" _. . . bring him here?"_

" _. . . can't go back now . . . leave him in Diagon Alley?"_

" _. . . just rest now, love . . ."_

Words fluttered about his head, trying to rouse him. He was just so tired. He ignored the buzzing words and drifted.

 

* * *

 

Panic bloomed in the moment just before waking. Something told him he was not in his own bed, nor his own clothes, and something was terribly wrong. He bolted up in a blind terror but remembered where he was about halfway to upright. He clutched an unfamiliar, loose, white shirt to his chest and gasped for breath. A rich smell permeated the air—yeasty, warm, spicy (as if it were _home_ ; not Draco's home, but a _real_ home) and delicious. There was yellow sunlight leaking through plain white curtains at the window, illuminating the stacks of boxes that surrounded him, each covered with a light film of dust.

His wand was sitting atop one of the boxes and he snatched it up as if it would make him feel better. His fingers left trails in the dust and he wiped his hand on the bottom of the shirt he wore. It was too big, the hem brushing his naked thighs. He was still wearing his pants, but someone had taken his trousers off and he wildly tried to remember who had done it.

The last thing he remembered was lying down in the grass of the Weasley's yard and waiting for Harry Potter to hex him into oblivion. He seemed to recall not finding the strength to care about his fate at Potter's hands. Had he fallen _asleep_ out there? He must be inside their house now.

Someone must have carried him inside. Undressed him and put him in a stranger's shirt and laid him down in this unfamiliar bed in someone's room. _Charlie_ , his mind said, even though he knew that was stupid. The man hadn't even been able to stand on his own, much less carry Draco. And since when was Draco thinking of him as "Charlie," anyway? But who else would have done it? The rest of the family hated him; Charlie was the only one with any sort of incentive to help him. Potter had no doubt advocated leaving him in the yard to freeze.

Draco sat down weakly on the edge of the bed. He was disturbed by how quickly his mind had conjured an image of himself in Charlie's arms. He couldn't think that. So he tried to focus instead on what he would do now. He couldn't stay here, obviously, but where else could he go? (Nowhere, oblivion, nothing left to live for . . .) He wasn't sure if he dared go back to school in autumn—

He heard a toilet flush and a shuffling noise just outside the half-open door, making him clutch his wand tightly. He finally noticed the _second_ bed with its rumpled sheets a mere breath before the scarred wooden door (and how the hell did one get scorch marks on the inside of a bedroom door?) creaked open.

Blue eyes. Freckles across the nose that danced out across the wide cheekbones. Shaggy red hair that curled around the ears and the nape of the neck. Muscles shifting under skin that was sun-bronzed and freckled and liberally dotted with shiny-pink burn scars.

It all looked so different when he was standing upright instead of writhing in pain.

"Oh, you're awake."

His voice was creaky in that just-woken way, but more than that it was rough with weariness and pain. He was clutching the wall for support.

He limped into the room, shuffling his feet gingerly and hunched like an old man. Draco knew how he was feeling. Every nerve was incredibly sensitive, so that even his clothing felt so rough as to be painful. His muscles were sore in places he hadn't known he had. And above all, he was tired. Very, very weak and very, very tired.

Draco didn't know what to say to this man, but he wasn't willing to sit here and stare at his slow, limping journey from doorway to bed. So he laid his wand on the pillow and got up and offered Charlie an arm for support. Together, they made their way to the bed and lowered him down. He groaned, but only a little.

"I guess we still haven't been properly introduced, have we? I'm Charlie Weasley." He retained his hold on Draco's arm, looking up at him very seriously. "Thank you."

Draco decided he would humour him with his name, but he had no idea what to say after that. Stuck on what came next, he didn't actually remember to say his name.

Charlie raised an eyebrow, but went on. "I wasn't going to last much longer, you know. You probably saved my whole family, doing what you did."

Draco shrugged irritably. They were not friends and this conversation was not something he could have with a stranger.

"Why did you?"

Again, how was he to answer that and still maintain any sense of dignity? He could hardly admit to either his aversion to Molly Weasley's tears or his attraction to her son. (And he ought to stop pretending he had any dignity left.)

"You don't talk much, do you?" Charlie asked with gentle humour.

Draco's temper flared up underneath the crippling weight of his despair, and he opened his mouth with a fiery retort. But nothing came out. He choked. Then he raised his hand and covered his mouth. What had just happened? He was already beginning to see, even though his mind raced wildly to deny it. He hadn't spoken since last night. Since they'd left the Manor. Since he'd . . . _No! Nononononono!_

He opened his mouth and tried again, but there was nothing. His throat pulsed with effort and made him choke again. Charlie's hand fell on his shoulder and Draco looked up to see a frown of concern that knit his auburn eyebrows nearly together.

"Is that— oh, Merlin, is that what the ward took from you?" he asked in a hushed voice.

Draco stopped breathing.

He didn't even notice it when Charlie guided him down to sit beside him.

This wasn't possible . . . Was it? It was happening to him, so clearly it must be possible. It had even suppressed his _desire_ to speak and now he couldn't when he tried. He couldn't wrap his mind around what this was. (Damnation.) It had taken his _voice_. He— he would never, ever speak again. It would— oh, they would learn non-verbal spell casting this year, he _had_ to learn that so this horrible curse couldn't take his magic, too. (No, not his magic, just _him_.)

"Hey," Charlie said, his voice commanding, shaking Draco by the shoulders. "Breathe!"

He'd forgotten how. His voice was gone, gone forever, but his mother was safe and oughtn't he be glad about that much— Charlie's hand was lightly hitting his cheek, his voice was concerned but indistinct to Draco's ears, because he was too busy trying to speak than to worry about breathing—

But wait. Something was happening.

Pressure on his lips. It was something soft and warm, but it was moving and strange and shocking and _insistent_ on opening his mouth.

Draco gasped, yanking himself away. He greedily sucked in air and felt his face grow hot. Charlie had _kissed_ him! He covered his lips with his hand and glared accusingly. _What are you on about?_ he wanted to scream, and couldn't. His throat pulsed with the effort, and so did the blood in his face.

"Ah, sorry," Charlie said, but his grin was unrepentant. "You just, er, weren't breathing, so I panicked a bit . . . ."

Draco's hand crept out, away from his lips, and touched Charlie's. He didn't know why he did it. Was he truly this frightened, this desperate, to forget who he was and to reach for this? He didn't even know what he was reaching for. (But hadn't he always been, all his life, reaching for this very same _something_?) He didn't know what it was, but the beginnings of it were in a pair of pink lips set below eyes so blue it made his heart hurt to look at them.

Charlie pulled his head back, looking surprised. "Oh. I'm sorry. I— If I'd known you were actually interested, I wouldn't have kissed you like that."

Draco wondered if it was his hurt or his anger that showed on his face. He strained to speak again, but there was still nothing.

"No, I didn't mean it like that," Charlie said in dismay. "I only did it because I thought it would make you mad, and I wanted you to breathe. I don't normally just go kissing blokes on a whim."

 _But if they want you to?_ he cried out, and went unheard. He wanted that again, wanted to be shocked out of his own mind for just another moment . . . No. No, he needed to get some composure back and deal with this. A damned Weasley wasn't going to coax him through this. He was (weak, cowardly, _scared_ ) a Malfoy and he didn't need help from this man.

Draco nodded, and stood up. He went back to the other bed and picked up his wand, then stared at the open door. He didn't know where he was going. He didn't even know where his clothes were. And he didn't know how to get any help from anyone without being able to speak. Mother was safe, a china doll placed high on a shelf to be lonely and untouched and beautiful . . . Draco wished he could be grateful for that.

Charlie pushed himself to his feet with a groan and came over to him. "Where are you going?" he asked quietly.

Draco turned to him and said _I don't know_ and nothing came out of his mouth. Charlie seemed to be able to read it on his lips because his face grew soft and he placed his hand on Draco's arm. Tears sprang up in Draco's eyes. He tried desperately to hold them back. He never cried, not real tears, and he wasn't about to start now. (Maybe he'd never cried because no one had ever touched him with such transparent compassion before.)

"Why don't we sit back down then?" With one hand on Draco's arm, he led him back to the bed he'd slept in. "You should get some rest. Unless I miss my guess, you've been having a rough time of it this summer, haven't you? Living with raving mad people can't be easy . . ."

_Easy? Twenty points to Gryffindor for such a stunning display of understatement._

A bitter and helpless laugh bubbled out of him, but it was just a puff of air with no voice behind it, and that in turn set his tears loose. Charlie hovered in indecision, his face horrified. Draco hunched over and hid his face, unable to stop crying and past the point of caring what Charlie thought of it.

"Merlin. You must be terrified," Charlie whispered, as though he was talking to himself and not Draco.

He felt an arm slide over his back, its warmth and weight reassuring in a way that made him feel even more pathetic. He'd tossed pride to the wind already, hadn't he? So he leaned into Charlie's comforting embrace and cried. His tears were silent, too.


	2. Charlie

Charlie began to wake with a tongue-lashing already half-formed, ready to unleash on the person who'd dared to disturb him. But had he just heard a _squawking_ noise? Or a yelp of some kind?

He opened his eyes with a death glare just waiting to be trained on someone. He regarded Harry Potter standing in the doorway, looking slightly sick. Charlie frowned, tried to stretch his limbs, and immediately discovered the source of Harry's problem. He'd fallen back asleep while comforting the crying wreck that was his supposed saviour. Said wreck of a saviour had fallen asleep in Charlie's arms. He supposed that he could forgive Harry for yelping when he'd unsuspectingly walked in to see Charlie and Draco curled up together on a bed with no trousers on.

Every inch of his skin was still horribly sensitive, and the feeling of Draco's skin and the shirt of Bill's they'd put on him was nearly unbearable. Funny that it hadn't seemed quite as important when Draco had been sobbing in fear. Charlie had hoped giving him a moment of support would make the tears stop, but when they hadn't, he'd tried to suck it up instead of running for his life. He hadn't actually meant to fall asleep this way. But after that long under Bellatrix Lestrange's _Cruciatus_ Curse, he could hardly help how weary he felt.

At least Harry hadn't walked in on their "kiss," he thought with humour as he carefully rolled Draco off him and onto the bed. Unfortunately, that made his eyes linger on Draco's lips, which were surprisingly full and pouty for a skinny little wretch like him. He definitely hadn't meant the kiss like _that_ , but he couldn't deny that if the kid gained about fifteen pounds, he'd be really attractive.

Okay, stop thinking like that. Harry was standing right there. And probably wanted something, come to think of it.

"Stop looking so revolted," he said. "He was crying, okay?"

Harry rolled his eyes.

"Well, can you blame him? He's scared out of his mind, what with— oh, right, I should tell you. I figured out what he lost when he Apparated us through the wards."

"Yeah?" Harry asked, looking unimpressed.

"His voice."

"His what?"

"He can't speak."

Harry looked entirely too happy about that. "Small favours," he muttered.

Charlie just quirked an eyebrow at him. "Says the boy who carried him upstairs."

Harry's cheeks suffused with colour. "I— well— I wasn't going to make your _mum_ do it!" he said at last.

Charlie had managed to hang onto consciousness last night long enough to see Harry, Ron, and Ginny standing over Draco with matching looks of disgust and watch Ginny stop Ron from trying to kick him. His brother and sister had left Draco lying there and had come over to help him, and Charlie had been surprised. He'd known they weren't exactly friends, but he hadn't guessed at the amount of hatred they had for Draco. Was it obvious to no one but Charlie that the kid had no _choice_ about what side he was on and how badly he didn't want to be part of it? Well, he'd rescued Charlie, so hopefully it was becoming obvious to the rest of them.

Harry, at least, had seemed to figure it out. He'd bent down and gotten an arm under his unconscious enemy and asked Dad to help him. Charlie had passed out somewhere between the front door and actually arriving in Fred and George's old room. He could only assume Mum had taken the task of putting them both in nightclothes, he'd hate to think Harry had been forced to lend a hand with _that_.

"So what's up?" Charlie asked him.

"Oh, right. Your mum just wanted me to see if you were awake yet. She's finished dinner and she said to ask you if you were hungry."

Not at all. In fact, the idea of food turned his stomach. But this was Mum.

"Just between you and me, I'm not. But tell Mum something light, okay? She'll have kittens if I don't eat something. Soup or bread if there is some. I don't think I could keep it down if she tries to send up a roast and mushy peas or something."

Harry cracked a smile at last. "I'll do my best," he said. He frowned down at the other figure on the bed. "Should I, er . . ."

Charlie looked down and saw that Draco's eyes were open. Draco didn't move, but he frowned a little.

"No, I don't think he'll wake up," Charlie answered easily.

Harry seemed relieved, and retreated quickly.

"Not hungry?" Charlie asked Draco, who continued to lie still and frown. "You probably ought to try to eat something, you know."

Draco's eyes flashed in a way Charlie was already beginning to recognize. That meant something had annoyed him and he wanted to say something about it. He'd done that a million times already. He must be a pretty impatient person, honestly. Or maybe it was just his inability to communicate that had him so upset. Charlie would be in a right state, himself, if it were him.

Nobody else really liked this young man, for reasons not well-known to Charlie. So maybe it was up to him to make an effort to communicate with the now-voiceless stranger.

"You don't like being baby-sat, eh?" Charlie said with good humour. People tended to get annoyed with his laid-back attitude toward everything, but he wasn't about to change now. Especially not for a Malfoy who inevitably had a stick up his arse. "I'm not trying to tell you what to do or anything, you know. Just pointing out that it looks like you haven't seen a decent meal in about the last decade."

Those eyes flashed again, and now Draco sat up. Charlie remained in his reclined position. His muscles were incredibly sore, probably from all the tension they'd carried, and he was not inclined to move them. He watched in fascination as Draco's throat undulated, then his eyes dulled, then he turned his face away. Charlie could guess at all the things he was feeling. Despair, disgust, fear, annoyance . . . but mostly fear. He'd just cut ties with his family and lost his ability not only to communicate but to do magic, for the time being.

No, Charlie didn't blame him for crying.

He'd saved Charlie's life, maybe even the rest of the family, and he was punished instead of rewarded. Charlie could guess his real problem: he had nowhere to go. Well, that just meant he'd stay here for the time being. From what Charlie had managed to hear before passing out, Mum was feeling reasonable about the whole thing since it meant Charlie wasn't murdered and sent home in a matchbox. He doubted that anyone else in the Weasley clan was feeling quite as ambivalent about the Malfoy in their home, but they'd come around.

"You know, the first thing we've got to do is to get you a quill and some paper, so you can let somebody know if you need anything. Wonder if there's a type of Quick Quotes Quill that would work for this . . . ? Well, anyway, that's the first step."

Draco's eyes were wide with surprise.

"Next thing to do is to work on some simple non-verbal spells so you can do a few things for yourself. I know you won't feel right until you can do magic again. I'm not too shabby with non-verbals, I can give you a few pointers." Charlie grinned at his stunned companion. "Actually, that ought to be the third step, eh? First step would be to get you some clothes."

Draco's face flushed red with embarrassment as he remembered what he was wearing. It was unbelievably cute. That was the most inappropriate thing he could possibly be thinking, so _of course_ his brain jumped straight there. Charlie chased the thought away before it could get any farther. They were working on Draco's ability to communicate and do magic, not his sex life. Oh, Merlin, he was _not thinking_ about sex. _Draco is still in school, he's just a kid, don't even_ _go there_ _._

"And in the meantime," Charlie said, loudly and clearing his throat, "we'll start looking for a way to get your voice back. Curses were made to be broken, weren't they?"

 _Rules_ , Draco mouthed quite clearly.

"Those, too," Charlie grinned. Rule-breaking was sort of his thing, while curse-breaking belonged to his older brother. "Anyway, I'll get Bill to start looking into it."

Draco looked rather surprised and overwhelmed.

"Well, what were you planning to do?" Charlie cajoled him. "Just sit here moping all day for the rest of your life?"

Draco began to frown. Mighty Merlin, the boy hadn't _really_ been planning to sit around doing nothing, had he?

"Sounds boring as hell," Charlie said. "You'd better take charge of the situation you're in here, because no one else is going to do it for you."

Draco's lips had thinned out, but he looked pensive rather than angry. He did have some fairly luscious-looking lips. Oh, for Merlin's sake, what was _wrong_ with him? Just because they'd slept half-dressed in the same bed . . .

"But I will help as much as I can," Charlie added.

Draco acted so quickly that all Charlie could do was sit there when the teenager leaned in and kissed him. It was nothing more than a quick peck, a way of saying thank you no doubt, but red blotches bloomed on Draco's pale cheeks.

Unbelievably. Cute.

Okay, time to get out of this bed. There were two beds in here for a reason. But when Charlie stood up, Draco's face fell. He looked like he was trying to speak for a moment, then he buried his face in his arms and turned away. Whoops.

Charlie sighed, sitting back down on the edge of the bed. "Sorry," he said awkwardly. This was why he liked one-night-stands and fuck-buddy arrangements. You enjoyed your time together and then you left each other the hell alone so you didn't have to have these awkward moments. He was not good with this kind of thing. At all.

"I . . . it's not that I'm not attracted to you. I am. But you're . . . well, you're, what, sixteen? And the situation we're in . . . It's a little odd, you have to admit. It would feel like I was, y'know, taking advantage of you. So I don't want to—"

Draco saved him from any further fumbling for words by stretching out his hand to cover Charlie's mouth. He had a wry look on his face. He nodded once, hopefully to mean that he understood. But then he just buried his face in his arms again, so Charlie had to wonder if he really did.

Not that Charlie himself had any idea what was going on, anymore.

Harry seemed relieved that Draco was not asleep and cuddled up in Charlie's arms anymore when he came back with a tray of food. He was incredibly wary about the fact that Draco was awake, though, telling Charlie he'd brought him some soup and crackers all while glancing at the room's other occupant out of the corner of his eye.

"Er . . ." Finally Harry took a deep breath and turned to face Draco fully. "Are you hungry, Malfoy?"

Up to this point, Charlie had only seen Draco looking hesitant, fearful, with those flashes of impatience. But when he looked up at Harry, his eyes were steely with anger. If he could have spoken, he would have said something hateful. As it was, his throat worked for a moment, then his face twisted and he ducked down to hide it again.

There was definite pity in Harry's expression. He looked at Charlie helplessly, but Charlie just shook his head. Even if Draco was hungry, he had this feeling that the kid would fling any food Harry brought back in his face. Harry left as quickly as he could, mumbling something about coming back for the dishes. Charlie started in on the soup, waiting for Draco to look up. He didn't.

"Er, Draco," Charlie began. "Are you sure you don't want to eat something? I probably won't even finish this, so if you want it . . ." It was true, his stomach felt queasy and it was somehow physically exhausting to contemplate digestion.

Draco looked up with bitter tears on his cheeks. Then he cautiously unfolded his slender limbs and crossed the room, sitting down beside Charlie and eating a few mouthfuls of soup before turning away listlessly. Between the two of them, they didn't even finish the bowl.

"I'm still completely exhausted," Charlie mumbled, setting the remains of the meal on top of a dusty box. "I'm going back to sleep."

In response, Draco yawned. His eyes were looking slightly less haunted and terrified now, but there were still huge circles under them. Charlie didn't think he'd been getting much sleep lately, on top of getting tortured by that psychotic woman. They both had some healing to do, it seemed.

Charlie didn't really care to think about what he did. He just did it.

He wrapped an arm around Draco as he laid down, pulling the younger man down with him. His nerves were still screaming and his muscles trembling, and it just felt nice to have something warm to cuddle up to. Even if said warmth was wriggling around in surprise and making soft grunting noises that were probably an attempt to communicate.

"Mmph," Charlie muttered, already fading. "Just sleep. Shhh."

Draco went still.

"Th's better . . ."

 

* * *

 

It took much cajoling and teasing to even get Draco on his feet the next morning, and Charlie felt accomplished when Malfoy put on his trousers and prepared to leave the room. Unfortunately, he froze up in the doorway.

"My family's not going to kill you," Charlie said with assurance. _My siblings might maim you, but they're not murderers_ , he thought more ruefully. "Come on. Just come downstairs. You have to start somewhere."

Draco's eyes were so sharp and cutting. Charlie was beginning to understand why his family might not enjoy having such a gaze trained on them. Charlie himself found it rather enticing. Intelligence and sharp edges were so—no, he was _still not thinking about that_.

"Will you come downstairs if I kiss you?" he asked lightly. It could easily be a joke, if Draco responded poorly.

But Draco's sharp eyes blinked in surprise, then nodded. They were almost of a height, even if Charlie did outstrip him by a good two stone, so all Charlie had to do was lean forward a bit to deliver the kiss. It was supposed to be light, a bit humorous—but Draco's lips caught his desperately. Charlie had to remind himself that Draco was frightened. This wasn't an adventure, it was the end of his life as he knew it.

He wasn't supposed to be taking advantage of him. But when Draco was looking at him like that, how was Charlie supposed to resist the urge to cradle him in his arms and shelter him from all the things he feared? It might not be smart, but he was finding it hard to care. Underlying Draco's incredible vulnerability at the moment were all these flashes of fierceness and passion: a lethal combination that was playing havoc with Charlie's common sense.

Charlie's hand was brushing over Draco's shoulder, a silent reassurance and an invitation. His work-roughened palm was snagging in the fine fabric of Draco's shirt, and Draco was moving in closer to him, lips locked over his with this incredible _desperation_ —like Charlie was the answer to all his questions, like he couldn't get close enough— Charlie knew that he was nothing but a screw-up, a school dropout who shirked responsibility, a calloused lech; Draco's need for him was staggering and complicated. But his hand clutching in Charlie's shirt and his clumsy kisses—dear Merlin, was Charlie his first kiss?—were so _endearing_ in their innocence that it didn't frighten Charlie like it should.

Finally, the knowledge that they were expected at breakfast, that he should not encourage a helpless teenager's advances, caught up to him and he pulled away. Draco looked . . . Wow. His cheeks were flushed and his lips parted for breath, and his eyes were glazed over with pleasure, though as awareness set in it was rapidly turning to disappointment and the flush was deepening with embarrassment. Charlie didn't think a kiss from _him_ had ever made anyone look like that before. He felt a heady rush at being the cause of it. And Draco, poor silent boy, was just gazing at him with something resembling worship.

Downstairs. They needed to go downstairs. Still drunk on the kiss, Charlie scooped Draco up and carried him down. Draco made a squeaking noise and flailed his arms, but Charlie just laughed and held onto him. He nearly dropped him because he still felt weak and awful, but he managed. And at the foot of the stairs, he dropped another kiss onto him before he set him on his feet.

"Urk," someone said.

Charlie looked round and found Fred gaping at him.

"Close your mouth before the flies get in," he said jovially. Inside, he was cringing. He hadn't thought anyone would see that. He did not want to have to explain himself to his little brother. How was he supposed to explain why he was kissing a boy who was younger than Fred? In his parents house. Oh Merlin. The glow of that kiss was wearing off, and reality was setting in. He had no idea _what_ he was doing.

"Close yours before _Malfoy_ gets in," Fred retorted with wide eyes.

"Didn't know you were home, Fred."

"A younger brother of mine may have called and said to remove the supplies still in our room, on account of some unexpected company."

"He neglected to mention the identity of the company," George added, gliding into the hallway with a similar wide-eyed look.

"Thinking what I'm thinking, Georgie?"

"Likely so, Fred."

"Revenge will be sweet. Ickle Ronniekins will pay for this."

"So what are _you_ doing here, Charlie? Please don't tell me you're bringing Malfoy home to meet Mum and Dad."

As it happened, "Malfoy" was bristling with indignation, and Charlie wasn't keen on starting a fight _or_ having to do his softly-reassuring act in front of an audience.

"It's a long story. Come on, everyone else is waiting to hear it, too. I'm sure Mum's been waiting breakfast."

Draco was trying to walk beside him with some sense of dignity, but Charlie could see how stiff he was, walking like a marionette on strings.

"Relax," he whispered, laying a hand on his arm. Draco's hand slipped over his, clutching tightly. And thus they walked into the kitchen, assuring that every eye in the room was drawn directly to their joined hands atop Draco's forearm. Draco immediately jerked away from him. It left Charlie feeling slightly bereft, though he'd never admit it. He'd sort of been thinking they'd face the family together.

"Oi, don't get sick on the toast, Ron," Fred said.

"Besides, you should have seen what they were doing—"

Charlie didn't even take his wand out of his pocket, just twitched it a bit to send a Tongue-Tying Curse in George's direction.

Fred took it off for his twin almost immediately, but George still sent a deadly glare in Charlie's direction.

"Ooo, how's it feel, George?" Charlie asked, his voice dripping with fake sympathy. "Imagine if you couldn't take it off, _ever_ , and then imagine how _scared to death_ you might be—"

Draco punched his shoulder, scowling. Damn, Charlie thought, rubbing it with a wince, he had a surprisingly good arm for a half-starved brat. Draco kept scowling at him, like he was trying to say something. Charlie searched him and saw it burning in his eyes: _you don't speak for me_.

Charlie was glad. Draco wasn't ready to give up his voice completely. There was some fight in him after all.

"Why don't we all sit down?" Arthur suggested, sounding pleasant. That was Dad's way, though. He always sounded pleasant, even when the world was crashing down around his ears. All the way up to the moment you pushed him too far, and then his anger was cold and deadly. "Charlie, son, we've all been fretting the past two days, so why don't you tell us what happened?"

Mum looked like she'd spent most of the past two days crying. In between naps, Charlie seemed to remember her being in the room checking on him quite a lot. He didn't really relish telling her all this, but everyone from Ginny to Bill, even Harry, was looking at him expectantly. Even Ron's girlfriend, whose name he could never remember—actually, he could never remember if she was Ron's girlfriend, either. Wasn't there some kind of newspaper article about her being Harry's girlfriend a while ago?

He sighed.

"Not much to tell," he said, sinking into a chair and irritably gesturing to Draco to sit beside him. "I was working when they snatched me . . ."

 

* * *

 

Mum was still leaking around the edges a bit when Charlie stopped talking and dug into his food, dabbing at her eyes with a napkin while Dad squeezed her shoulder.

Harry was looking angry and sad in the way only a hormonal teenager could, but Charlie still felt bad when he heard Harry whisper, "I'm sorry."

It wasn't Harry's fault, and Charlie didn't blame him at all. But since he'd apparently lost his godfather at the beginning of the summer, he probably wouldn't accept that. He was hell-bent on blaming himself for everything bad that happened, seemed like. Charlie's association with Harry, however distant, had technically been the cause of his torture and therefore Harry would beat himself up like any fifteen-year-old would. Charlie figured the only thing he could do about it was act normally around the kid until he realized Charlie didn't hate him.

Ron was staring at Draco like the blond had grown a second head.

"I can't believe it," he pronounced. "Why'd you do it, Malfoy?"

Draco responded with a rude hand gesture. Even though he did it under the table where only Ron, Harry, and Charlie could see, it still set off Mum's detection ability.

"None of that unpleasantness at my table," she declared.

"Mum, you know what he—"

"Ronald Weasley," she said firmly. Ooo, Ronald. That shut him up.

Good. Charlie was hardly ready to go leaping to Draco's defense in front of the whole family. They weren't _together_ , for Merlin's sake. But he'd have to, if it came to it, because Draco couldn't defend himself right now.

"And that goes for you, too, Mr. Malfoy," she said sharply, wiping the smug look off his face and replacing it with something comically surprised.

Charlie nudged him. "Just eat," he said with a smile. "We'll get you some quill and parchment after breakfast."

Chastened by the reminder that hand gestures comprised all of Draco's ability to communicate at the moment, Ron shoved the basket of toast their way, his eyes lowered and his face blazing red. The girl who was apparently not his girlfriend but was named Hermione was smiling at him quite fondly when he did that, Charlie noticed. That whole not-girlfriend thing wasn't going to last for long.

Draco almost refused the basket, but Mum's eyes were still on him, so he took it with bad grace and passed it on to Charlie. Mum sat back in her seat and resumed twisting her napkin in her hands.

"That settles it, Charlie," she said firmly. "I've been saying all along that you shouldn't live so far away—"

Charlie couldn't help the disgusted noise that came out of his mouth.

"And it's too dangerous now," she continued, ignoring him. "They'll be after you. You'll have to stay here with us."

"Over my dead body I'll be staying here," Charlie said. He hated it when his voice got dark and ugly like that. It didn't sound like him. That's why he couldn't stay here, or he would just sound that way all the time. Again.

"Your mum's right," Dad spoke up, looking regretful. "You try to go back to your house, and it might very well be over your dead body. You escaped from them, and they won't forgive you for that, son."

Charlie gaped at them both with disbelief. "No," he said strongly. "Like hell I'm moving back home. Why d'you think I _left_?"

This was family stuff, he thought dimly, and there were three people in this room who weren't family, but Charlie was seeing red and didn't have the control to politely ask them to leave before he went off on his parents.

As it turned out, he didn't have to.

"If you want him to come back home," Ginny said, standing up, "you'll have to do a damn sight better by him this time." Her voice trembled with a righteous anger. Charlie felt bad. She'd been such a little girl when things had been bad between him and Mum and Dad, and he'd sometimes wondered if she truly knew why they fought.

All of his siblings looked grave, now. They had all let it slip from their minds, buried under several years of peace. But none of them had actually forgotten Mum crying and Dad slamming doors and Charlie punching holes in the wall. Seems like it had affected Ginny more than he'd realized.

Harry looked stunned. Charlie hated to burst his bubble, but the Weasley family wasn't perfect. They might love each other, but that wasn't exactly a guarantee of seeing eye-to-eye. After all, Percy wasn't here, either, was he? Percy, the son after Charlie. Percy, who'd tried so hard to be perfect that he'd forgotten how to be human. Percy, who was so terrified of disappointing their parents that he'd ended up making them cry for a different reason entirely. Charlie hadn't let it all twist him up in knots the way Percy had. He was gay, and they didn't like it, and that was just the way life was. Just because he didn't feel good about living at home didn't mean he had to become bitter and ugly like his younger brother. Percy had hated the way they treated his older brother until he just hated everything about them.

"Ginny, sit down and finish your breakfast," Mum said in a voice that was iron-hard. She didn't want to do this in front of company, either.

"No," Ginny said in an ugly voice.

Harry was the one who was looking alarmed and trying to get her to sit back down. None of her brothers was lifting a finger.

"Ginny, do as your mother says," Dad said, sounding nervous.

"Only after you promise to leave him alone," she said. Was her voice _shaking_? His little sister had always seemed so fearless . . .

"We will discuss this later," Mum said through clenched teeth.

"No, I'm with Ginny, let's discuss it now," Fred spoke up.

Charlie glared at him. "Who was freaking out that I kissed him a few minutes ago?"

"You _what_?" Ron choked.

"That's because he's Malfoy, not because he's a guy," Fred protested. "I mean, look at him."

Charlie, despite himself, did. Draco was so stiff with anger that he looked like he was vibrating. His hand was clenched on his fork in a grip like he meant to stab somebody with it.

"Sorry, Fred's just an idiot, don't listen to him," Charlie muttered, trying to pry the fork out of his hand. Draco was shaking his head and stabbing a finger at Charlie's chest. But why would he be angry about Charlie fighting with his parents? "We just used to get in a lot of fights about me being gay, so I moved out, it's not— Ah, who am I kidding? It was miserable. Why are you so upset?"

" _Quill,"_ he mouthed at Charlie. _"Now."_

"Anybody have a quill?" Charlie asked helplessly.

Harry stood up, looking completely dumbfounded, and rummaged in his pocket. "I've got a biro, I think . . ." The Weasley family was familiar with Muggle pens, courtesy of their father. Draco, when Harry attempted to hand it to him, just stared at him.

"It's a self-inking pen," Charlie muttered. Draco snatched it from Harry without even attempting a gesture of gratitude and waited imperiously for someone to give him parchment. George had a folded-up bit in his pocket, and he handed it over. George simply looked curious, which was a nice change of pace from all the anger and disgust in the room.

 _I saved you for_ _her_ , Draco scrawled in a messy, rushed hand. ~~_My mother wanted_~~ _I was thinking about your mother. ~~I didn't want to see anybody's mum crying~~_ ~~ _because of what I did_~~ _I saved you so she'd still have a son, but she doesn't even want you! I can't believe I gave up all of that, I gave up my_ _voice_ _and she doesn't love you_

"Hey," Charlie said sharply, cutting Draco off mid-scrawl. "My mum does love me."

Interest piqued by that comment, the twins snatched the parchment away and read it. Draco leapt to his feet in an effort to get it back, his face twisted into a silent snarl, but Charlie held onto him. He could feel Draco's heart pounding in his thin chest, beneath skin flushed with the heat of anger. The parchment went around the table and ended up with Mum. The room was silent but for the noise of Draco's heavy breathing.

Mum read it, and laid it down next to her plate. She met Draco's eyes, and her own were filling with tears.

"Is your mother in danger, then?"

Draco opened his mouth, shook his head violently, then wrenched himself out of Charlie's grip and ran from the room. Before anyone could react, they heard the front door slam shut.

"Dammit," Charlie muttered, feeling weak and quivery from the effort he'd already expended this morning. "I'm going after him." He started to limp toward the door, but Ron and Harry pushed past him.

"We'll get him," Harry said.

"Right," Charlie said dully, watching them go, much quicker than he was capable of at the moment. "Just don't do anything stupid."

He stayed in the doorway, trying to get his emotions under control. He _was_ upset, because they were right about the danger. At least for a while, he would probably have to stay here. And he could feel the seething tension in the house at his back, and the idea that he would be living in the midst of that made him feel sick to his stomach, like he hadn't felt since he was sixteen. He'd dropped out of school and moved to Romania for a _reason_ , dammit, and he didn't want to do this again. Just because a bloke got older it didn't mean that it suddenly stopped hurting when his parents treated him like a mistake. He'd almost rather get kidnapped and tortured by the hellbitch again.

But there was Draco to think about, too. If Charlie went back to Romania right now, he'd be leaving Draco alone with only the Weasley family to care about his well-being, and it was rather obvious that several members of the family did not, in fact, care about his well-being. The romantic feelings didn't even need to figure in—he was attractive and interesting, but he was also way too young, likely terribly spoiled, likely had a huge stick up his butt, and likely was a ridiculous blood purist. Charlie might enjoy kissing him, but he wasn't thinking about staying here to protect him because he was interested in dating him. It had nothing to do with that. It was just that after giving up his family and his voice to save Charlie's life, Draco was owed something better than being abandoned in a semi-hostile environment. Even if Charlie didn't have any concern for his own safety, he ought to stay until Draco had a plan.

His eyes were caught by movement outside, and he had to turn his head to muffle laughter. Draco had been caught by the boys and was being marched back toward the house; all three faces were as grim as if he was being escorted to the firing squad.

". . . you know, he's my brother, and I don't even care about that, but for Merlin's sake not with _you_ , you bastard, so just, you know…" Ron appeared to be struggling for words.

"Stay away from him?" Harry suggested, his hand tight on Draco's arm.

Draco's mouth was open and his chest was heaving. He was clearly trying to say something, and Charlie immediately wanted to leap to his defense. How could they be cruel enough to bully a guy who couldn't even defend himself? But he really had to get a handle on that impulse. Draco had to figure something out for himself.

And then there was that niggling feeling that they had a reason to hate him. It was obvious that there was a long history between them. Charlie might not know what had happened, but he should at least consider the possibility that Draco deserved the way they treated him. It wasn't like the Malfoy family was known for its compassion and moral standards.

But . . . He'd left them, hadn't he? Maybe he hadn't been thinking through the ramifications of it, but he'd chosen to leave and he'd accepted the loss of something important by doing so. Didn't that mean anything to these two?

"I'm a big boy," Charlie drawled from the doorway, causing them all to start in guilty-looking surprise. "I can handle myself."

Harry and Draco both flushed silently, but Ron's big mouth never quit.

"Well, yeah, but Charlie, he's a total git. You don't know him—"

"Don't be an idiot, Ron," Charlie said mildly. "Or rather, I guess you can't help that, but you _can_ shut it and make sure nobody knows. You obviously don't know him, either. Now, d'you think everybody could just go back inside and eat breakfast in peace? Great. In you go."

"Charlie—"

"What did I just say about keeping your gob shut, Ron? Thank you."

Ron and Harry both brushed past him brusquely, the very picture of wounded dignity. But then Draco hung back, standing on the front stoop with his arms crossed over his chest and one pale eyebrow raised. "Wounded dignity" was likely not his middle name, but only because the Malfoys had some family name they needed to give him.

Charlie was _not_ going to stay in this house indefinitely when it was filled up with prickly, angsting teenagers. Well, he didn't really have a choice about it, but he was not about to take it gracefully.

"I'm not stupid, you know" he snapped irritably. "You might be gorgeous, but if they all think you're a git, then you're probably a git. Your shit smells just as bad as anybody else's, and you'd better remember that if you want to survive the situation you're in. So why don't you wipe that look off your face and go inside?"

Priceless. The dumbfounded, slack-jawed look on his face was completely priceless. Charlie snickered on his way back into the kitchen. But something inside him was cringing. He felt like he'd never done anything so intimate as sleep—in pain, restlessly but innocently sleeping—beside Draco. It seemed like the moment they'd left the bedroom, it had broken some kind of spell. In there, he could pretend this was something that might actually work. Out here, it was completely ludicrous.

"Should've just kept him locked in there with me," Charlie mumbled as he sat back down. Draco rejoined the table as well. It was eerie, he thought as he munched on his toast. He'd never known the Weasley family to stop talking. Not even in their sleep. But suddenly—they were silent. Just eating with their eyes on their plates.

He stood up so abruptly that Draco jumped, and the noisy crash of his plate into the sink made Mum close her eyes and shudder.

But then her eyes opened, her shoulders straightened, and something came over her. Charlie didn't know what it was, or what to call it, but he'd seen it before, when he'd been little. He and Bill had been jumping off the roof with their brooms and trying to catch themselves midair, and Bill hadn't. He'd hit the ground. And Dad had started shouting that his back was broken, and Charlie had started screaming and Percy had been sobbing. And Mum . . . Mum had squared her shoulders, taken a deep breath, and drawn her wand. Five minutes later, he and Bill had been catching garden gnomes.

"Everyone has chores to do this morning," Mum said. "Ginny, you and Hermione are getting the laundry done and you boys are working in the garden. Bill's going to work, so that leaves . . . Mr. Malfoy, I'll want your help with the dishes and cleaning up the kitchen."

Wide gray eyes looked up at her in blank shock.

"Come on," she said briskly, gesturing at him with both hands. "Everyone helps out around here. You ate on those dishes, you can help wash them."

Draco tried to speak, but Mum just kept gesturing at him, so he got to his feet and walked to the sink as if he was under Imperius. Ron started laughing into his glass of pumpkin juice, but Mum's glare could have cut through diamond.

"I won't have it, Ronald Bilius Weasley," she said, very quietly.

Ron went pale and hurried to bring his dishes to the sink.

"Charlie, dear, if you're feeling up to—"

"I'm going for a walk," Charlie said, trying not to snarl, and stalked out of the house as fast as his legs would take him. He couldn't stay here. He was going to go starkers.


	3. Draco II

If there was one thing that Draco knew he was not, it was stupid. He'd made plenty of mistakes because he hadn't thought things through, but not stupid. (Who would want to think, would _want_ to discover that everything they'd been told was a lie?)

He had no choice but to think now. Charlie was right. So long as he'd been in his father's house, he'd been something special, because Lucius Malfoy had made it so. Out here, he must begin as nobody. (Oh, he'd always been nobody, from the very beginning, he just hadn't seen it because he didn't want to _think_.) It was more than simply not having the advantages afforded by his family's money and status. He was . . . Merlin, he was _disabled_. He had _less_ now, less than even the hated enemies he'd found himself among. (Enemies tortured you, they didn't feed you breakfast.)

Draco knew that to survive, he had to fight for some power, some control over his situation. Otherwise, he'd be stuck here relying on the goodwill of the bloody Weasley family for the rest of his life. He couldn't just sit here and wait for Father to change his mind and expel the intruders from their home. That would be waiting for something that would never happen. (And it hurt, didn't it? He could say it, here in his own thoughts, say just how terribly it hurt that Father would not do that for him.)

Charlie was right. Nobody was going to do anything for him. Not anymore. Draco had to learn how to do for himself. And suddenly, the strangest feeling of _freedom_ coursed through him, strange because he must now work harder than ever and he didn't understand why that felt like freedom. He was . . . nobody. A nobody could do _anything_ , couldn't they? Would he have left his home sooner, if he'd realized that? (He missed not thinking, he missed not discovering, he missed comfort and privilege and he needed to stop missing them because they weren't coming back.)

He began in the kitchen, with Mrs. Weasley. He was a Slytherin, through and through, and as such he was supposed to be able to turn any situation to his advantage. If he must stay here for a time, then he needed to figure out how to make it work for him. Molly Weasley was clearly the place to start. He cleared the dishes from the table, followed her direction in scraping up the leavings and separating out what were the good bits he could feed to the chickens. (He was a Malfoy, a _Malfoy dammit_ , and he was going to throw table scraps to _chickens_.) He kept his eyes lowered and did as he was told. She talked. She would show him what to do, but she just never shut up, even asking him questions and making him burn with shame and anger when he could not answer. It didn't seem to bother her, neither his inability to answer nor his flushed cheeks and trembling fingers. She'd just change the subject and prattle on.

And before he left the kitchen, being bidden to follow her upstairs for yet more chores, she gave him a firm look of disapproval, then she licked her hand and flattened his uncombed hair. (Uncombed, by Merlin, he'd never appeared in front of _anyone_ with uncombed hair and then Charlie had kissed him and he'd forgotten everything.) He stared at her in shock, but she was just patting him on the shoulder and pushing him upstairs. She was touching him. With this familiarity as though he'd lived here for ten years and not two days. What?

At the end of the afternoon, after he'd washed dishes, after he'd scrubbed the bathroom, after the twins had cleaned their stuff out of the room and Draco had dusted everything and made up the bed with the sheets that the girls had washed . . . He was exhausted. He could play Quidditch all day and never get tired, but he flopped down on the couch with the feeling that he was completely wrung out. Freedom was _hard_. (And good, he felt so _good_ too, nobody had ever told him that working until you were sore would feel so different and amazing.)

He didn't even know that he'd dozed off until somebody nudged at him to scoot him over, and he woke up abruptly, scrabbling back away from the threat and simultaneously wiping at the wet corner of his lip where he'd begun to drool. He nearly fell off the couch, opening his mouth to shout and having his throat seize up and beginning to choke.

Strong arms caught him, and he looked up into those blue eyes that he wished he could get lost in.

"You all right?"

Draco's heart was pounding. (Afraid or aroused or maybe both and he didn't want to know which.)

"Here," Charlie said, and handed him a small brown paper bag. "I walked into town today."

Draco took the offered package and found two small books filled with paper—it was thinner than parchment, oddly bleached and white and sterile-looking, but filled up with faint horizontal lines.

"They're just blank notebooks, for you to write in," Charlie explained. "It's not parchment, but I thought you'd want something more durable, with a cover. I think I got ones that were small enough to fit into your pocket. And there's more of those pens in there, too. The self-inking ones like Harry had."

Draco reached in and pulled out a crinkly package with a dozen of them in a neat row of plastic and different colours of ink.

"Ah," Charlie said, his face colouring with embarrassment (dear Merlin, it _was_ possible to embarrass him after all, and that fact must be remembered), "I just thought you might get bored with the same colour all the time."

Draco found himself stunned. It was one thing for a recovering torture victim to walk into town to run an errand for him. It was another for a man to whom he was attracted to admit that he'd been thinking about him to that extent. He tore the plastic wrapping open and selected a blue pen, but then he just slumped back on the couch, twirling the pen in his fingers and thinking dully that it was much easier to have an excuse not to communicate. (He never had communicated, not anything important, never in his life, and the idea of beginning was overwhelming.) His limbs were literally trembling with exhaustion.

"Are you okay?" Charlie frowned, looking worried.

He shrugged. Then a little smirk crept onto his face as he opened up the notebook and scrawled off a reply. He had to get used to this. And he had to smirk because otherwise he'd cry. (He never cried because it was pointless but he'd cried on Charlie and the man had held him and comforted him and he wanted to cry every day because now someone _cared_ if he did.)

Charlie read his note explaining that he'd done a lot of housework, and lifted an eyebrow at his self-deprecating remarks about blistering his soft little aristocratic hands. Draco expected, or maybe just hoped (stupid, stupid him) that Charlie would be pleased, would congratulate him for accepting his situation and doing what he had to do.

Instead, Charlie bolted off the sofa, even though with his shaky legs and pale cheeks he was obviously even more exhausted than Draco, and shouted, "MUM!"

"WHAT?" she shouted back, busy making dinner in the kitchen.

"Mum, LOOK AT HIM!" he bellowed, wandering closer to the kitchen.

Draco closed his eyes and reminded himself that the Weasleys were poor as dirt and blood traitors and their lack of decorum was only to be expected and possibly even to be pitied because they likely didn't know any better. (He didn't like noise, he liked quiet and order and he certainly, never could possibly, get used to how comfortable this all seemed.)

"DON'T SHOUT IN MY HOUSE, CHARLES WEASLEY," Molly replied, stomping into the room and waving a damp wooden spoon in her son's face. "I raised you better than that!"

Draco manfully suppressed the urge to comment, then remembered that he didn't actually have to because he couldn't speak anyway. His snarky amusement over the whole thing flattened. But that just made him even more determined. He was going to _do something about this._ He was already depressed enough every day just from being powerless and being alone and being gay and every other fucking thing that made up being Draco Malfoy—he couldn't keep getting depressed all over again about his sudden disability. He was going to— well, he would— he would _ask Bill Weasley_. So _there_. (How pathetic was he, really, that even now the only thing he could do for himself was to ask someone else for help?)

"Now, what do you want?" she asked more calmly.

Charlie gestured angrily to where Draco was sitting rather limply on the sofa.

"Mum. You can't just . . . He's been _tortured_ recently, for Merlin's sake. And I think breakfast was the first thing he's eaten in _months_. Just look at him! I can't believe you made him clean the _bathroom_."

Molly actually looked surprised, and Draco proceeded to bury his face in his hands. So much for his attempt to be stoic and brave about this. His plan to work hard to impress her and bear it silently had not taken into account the idea that Charlie was going to face off with her about it.

"I told him to let me know if he needed to rest."

The way Charlie rolled his eyes was a response in itself. Molly lightly smacked him on the hand with her spoon.

"What did I say about how I raised you?"

While Draco was sniggering—silently, of course—at how helpless Charlie was against a good dose of mothering, Molly was crossing the room to talk to him. He abruptly sat up and closed his mouth, alert to the possible dangers.

"You ought to have told me if you were getting tired."

Draco shrugged, feeling completely stupid now. He'd started _out_ tired, and the continual build of exhaustion didn't seem as important as ingratiating himself with her. Damn Charlie and his _Gryffindorishness_. This right here, this was why he hated those bloody lions. They didn't _think_.

He opened his mouth to say something smooth and resolve the whole thing before he remembered that he couldn't. And then he just flushed with embarrassment and annoyance. He couldn't _write_ something smooth, for Merlin's sake. It just wouldn't be the same. And he had this odd feeling like he had to tell the truth if he wrote it down. You couldn't just say things flippantly on paper. Words spoken to the air were gone in an instant, but what he scrawled into this notebook was going to ride around in his pocket with him and not be forgotten.

 _Don't I need to earn my keep?_ he scrawled before he could stop himself, and then he tried to keep the notebook instead of giving it to them, because he didn't like that his bitterness was so obvious. But Charlie plucked it out of his hands, read it, and then gave it to his mother and scowled at her.

Molly sighed. She looked very weary, her shoulders slumping and some of the animation leaving her face as she looked down at Draco in a more sober way.

"Right now, I don't know how to feel about you. It's true that I've never been comfortable with the . . . the way Charlie is. I regret the way we acted, his father and I, we _both_ regret that. And now with you being here . . . I know that you've fought with the boys at school. I've heard all about it. But you saved Charlie's life, and you gave up a great deal to do it. I can't pretend to know why. But I can see that you want a chance to prove yourself, and I even think you deserve it. I owe you a great deal for bringing my Charlie home, Mr. Malfoy. I don't want to think I'm a vindictive person, and I don't want to see people in pain. You don't need to worry that you'll be turned out on your ear if you don't work hard enough. I wouldn't do that."

She was just rambling, spilling out her thoughts as they came to her. It was a bit jumbled, and yet Draco still somehow felt like he understood her. She needed to have some private time with Charlie, later on, in which she could apologize for her behaviour in the past and where the two of them could come to terms with who Charlie was, but it seemed like she was ready to move forward. Was she . . . Was she implying that she was giving him the chance because she thought that Charlie and Draco were . . .?

It was nice to know that she was willing to think about it. Not that it was a real possibility, right now. He and Charlie were—well, they were still strangers, honestly. He hated stupid Gryffindors, and Charlie apparently thought he was a git anyway. And Charlie was probably right about not trying to start something while Draco was in this situation, and the age difference really was kind of—

Draco was thinking about a relationship. With a man. With a _Weasley_.

The moment he realized that, he wanted to give up on everything and die. Being gay was something he was used to suffering through, because he knew he could never have what he wanted, he knew he had to marry a girl and have a baby and always be alone and nobody cared. Being gay when there was another gay man on hand with the possible support of his mum was completely different. He honestly wondered if it would be easier to kill himself than to finally face himself, in reality, for the first time.

"Draco?" Charlie said after a long moment of silence.

" _Sorry,"_ he mouthed silently, then hesitantly picked up the notebook again. _I want to work hard_ , he wrote, and when it was down on paper then it was the truth. _I need to try to_ — that was as far as he got before he was stumped and didn't know what to write. _I don't know what to do right now_ , he wrote after a moment. _I don't know how to do anything, especially without magic, and I don't know where to go, but I want to work hard and try to figure that out. I don't care if it makes me tired._

Then he handed the book to Molly, not to Charlie. He wasn't sure why he did that.

But then she pulled him up off the sofa so she could hug him, smooth down his still-uncombed hair, and whisper that he could stay here as long as he needed to. He didn't move until she pulled away to finish cooking dinner.

 

* * *

 

Things were rather easier after that. He avoided Potter, Weasley, and Granger as much as possible, and they were surprisingly willing to do the same. Oddly enough, it was Ginny that was easy to get along with. They got stuck doing housework together as often as not, but she'd just turn on the radio, make the occasional comment, and otherwise just peacefully exist in the room with him. She would roll her eyes and become extremely sarcastic when he needed directions on how to do the chores, but she made not a single remark about the fact that he had to ask his questions on paper. She was a rare sort of person, it seemed to him. She was perfectly willing to give him crap about his inexperience with dusting and their house rivalry and things like that, but she never said one malicious word about his silence or about his suddenly revealed sexual orientation. Nothing about the things he couldn't help.

He and Molly got on great. She was uncultured and dumpy, but as a mother she was unparalleled. No porcelain doll was Molly Weasley—underneath her ugly sweaters she was made of steel. Not to mention her cooking. Draco had never eaten such low-class and unrefined meals, but he wasn't complaining. She pushed second helpings onto him, thirds if she could manage it. The taste of it wasn't fancy and sometimes it was even boring—but it tasted like _warm_ and _home_ and _love_. Draco never argued about the second helpings.

Mr. Weasley was extremely easy to handle. A family man, Mr. Weasley. He wanted his wife happy and he wanted his kids safe, and it was as simple as that. Draco just had to make sure he was helpful to Molly and not fighting with the Gryffindor idiots, and Mr. Weasley accepted his presence calmly. Then he started following Arthur into his shop where he kept all his Muggle nonsense. He earnestly pretended to care about the experiments, listening to Arthur with rapt attention. It was only too easy. He'd had to listen to his own father's long speeches for years, and compared to lessons about the incest-tinged connections between important pureblood families, lessons about spark plugs were surprisingly interesting. He even drummed up enough interest to fiddle around with a broken television sometimes. He never got it to work, but it made Arthur happy to see him inserting screwdrivers randomly into the back of it.

Draco enjoyed most of all his working relationship with Bill Weasley. Bill was living here again, it seemed, because he was courting Fleur Delacour and that was hard to do from Egypt. Draco was never quite able to relax around Bill, but for some reason that wasn't so bad. It was good that there was someone who kept him on his toes. Charlie had to go buy more notebooks because Draco filled pages and pages during his conversations with Bill. Ostensibly they were attempting to break the curse on Draco's voice, but their discussions of magical theory ranged far and wide and sometimes took wild tangents into history and literature. Sometimes Draco didn't care about the topic at all, but if he could feign interest in the concept of ceiling fans then he could certainly feign interest in goblin wars. Bill was ridiculously well-educated. He was constantly reading.

The one thing they never talked about was Charlie. Perhaps that was why Draco couldn't relax. Molly and Arthur brought it up from time to time, and seemed to believe that eventually Draco and Charlie would declare themselves to be a couple and the whole family could then simply accept or not accept the fact. But not Bill. His silence on the topic made Draco anxious, far more so than the rest of them.

Still, most of the time they were actually trying to work on curse-breaking. Draco was learning far more than he'd meant to about the topic. He and Bill filled page after page with his questions and Bill's diagrams, and Bill was surprisingly supportive about his attempts to understand it. None of Bill's ideas for helping Draco seemed to work at all, but they were always inventive and interesting. Mostly, Draco was learning the theory of this branch of magic because he didn't want Bill casting spells on him without knowing what they were. But he was getting interested in the whole thing in spite of himself. Curse-breaker sounded like an interesting job. A job for an educated person. A _fun_ job, even.

Draco remained inquisitive about theory and kept those thoughts to himself. He did not want to express interest in Bill's job, not like that. He didn't want Bill to tell him that he was unfit for the job and that furthermore he didn't like him and Draco ought to stay away from his brother. Because Draco _knew_ somehow, he just _knew_ , that Bill would say exactly that if Draco brought it up. So Draco just didn't.

And then there was Charlie.

 

* * *

 

That first night after talking to Molly, he hadn't wanted to eat, even though everything smelled great and he'd been working so hard. His stresses and fears often presented themselves this way: he wouldn't want to eat, and if he did it would taste like sand. But Molly pressed it on him, and he ate it to make her happy, and she _was_ , she was so _pathetically happy_ that he ate more when she shoved it on him. (He didn't care if she was happy, not really, but it was all part of starting at the bottom and working his way up and he definitely didn't ever want her to hug him like that again.)

He started trying to help with the dishes and was quickly rebuffed, told he'd done enough that day. He immediately took the excuse to retreat upstairs, into the room that had belonged to Fred and George Weasley but for now belonged to him. The second bed was already gone. Charlie and Bill had always shared a room growing up, and they were temporarily doing so again. It seemed that with sufficient recovery came a sense of propriety.

So Draco, alone in that room, finally felt free to collapse on the bed, curl around the tight pain in his stomach from all that food after so long without, and give in to his exhaustion and fear and pain and humiliation and everything else. When he was alone, he didn't cry. He never had; there was no point. He just curled up and hugged a pillow and tried to breathe.

It must have been midnight by the time Charlie crept down the stairs. Everyone was in bed and the house was . . . not _quiet_ with its creaks and groans and drafts of air that were so unfamiliar to him, but at least it was less loud. Charlie pushed the door open after a muted little knock that he gave Draco no time to respond to. He took in the way Draco still lay there, trying to fight away the overwhelming feeling that it didn't matter how hard he tried because he was _fucked_. (He was lazy, he had to remind himself, and he'd never accomplish anything anyway so why was he so eager to try _now_?)

Charlie crossed the room on silent, bare feet and Draco didn't know how to respond. Charlie was wearing fuzzy old flannel pants and a tight tank top and the sight of his strong arms with their burn scars and the freckles across his broad shoulders . . . Did he want to welcome such a sight or did he hate Charlie for seeing his weakness?

Charlie sat down quietly on the bed.

"You put up a good front, I'll give you that," he said. He smiled, tinged with sadness, and his hand reached out and touched Draco's hair. "It's all right to just say you're scared, you know."

And suddenly Draco was crying, was sobbing again like he had that first day when he'd realized his voice was gone. Crying was the loudest sound he could make, and all you could hear was his breath. He wanted to be _heard_ , dammit, and he turned his face into the pillow and _screamed_ but nothing came out of his throat. The curse choked him and for a minute he couldn't breathe and then he was even more terrified and—

He collapsed into Charlie's arms and just cried. Charlie held him without complaint, making little shushing noises and petting his hair. Draco didn't let himself cry for long, but he went on longer than was probably necessary. Charlie cared that he cried, and he couldn't seem to get enough of this idea that someone wanted to comfort him when he was afraid. (Just for a while, he would only be weak for a short while and then he'd get over this and be _himself_ again.)

He had pushed himself away from Charlie and mouthed _Thank you_ , and he thought that Charlie would go back to bed. But when Charlie tried to stand up, his legs collapsed and he fell heavily back onto the bed.

"Think I overdid it today," he said wryly. "I haven't been so knackered since that time Lucian Bole and I made a bet about how many times we could get off in— never mind. Anyway. I just need a minute, and I'll get out of your way."

The feeling of possibility growing between them, even a certain sense of peace, crept over Draco and he knew it was because the two of them were sitting here on this bed in this room again. Charlie's muscles were quivering and weak (Draco's weren't much better) and he was kidding himself if he thought he was going to make it back upstairs tonight.

Draco snaked his arms around Charlie's neck, pressed a light kiss onto his lips, and then pulled him down onto the bed. Charlie's breath caught and he seemed to be holding it, but Draco just insinuated himself into Charlie's arms and closed his eyes. He was ready to sleep, now.

 

* * *

 

That first night broke whatever barrier might have been formed by moving them into separate rooms. Most nights, Charlie would come down to the room where Draco was staying. On the nights Bill didn't come home (and Mrs. Weasley pursed her lips into a thin line and Mr. Weasley pointed out that Bill and the young lady were well enough to think for themselves and Draco was extra helpful and innocent-eyed in the kitchen), then it was Draco's turn to silently brave the dark staircase and find Charlie.

It was all soft candlelight and a nearly drunken warmth, when they were together, like nothing Draco had ever felt before. They'd talk forever, into the wee hours of the morning. At first, Draco would sit on the edge of the bed and write his responses into the notebook, handing it to Charlie where he'd be leaning against the wall or lounging on his pillows. But Draco had never been known for his self-control, and he couldn't seem to maintain any sort of distance. The two of them would sprawl on their stomachs, side-by-side on the bed with the notebook in front of them, and they'd both scribble their thoughts, kicking up their bare feet behind them and tangling them together.

It was all so very innocent, he told himself. (The uncomfortable shifting when Charlie's hip pressed against his, the way his fingers trembled with the urge to run through curling hair that smelled of pine and musk from his shampoo, the number of kisses exchanged when attention was caught by the candle flickering on the shine of Charlie's pink lips, those things were all _so very innocent_.) They were just talking. Sometimes they'd go back to separate rooms when they got sleepy, but often they just fell asleep together. Charlie didn't seem to care what his family thought, but it made Draco anxious. He was trying to ingratiate himself with the people who were standing between him and homelessness, after all. So he set a silent, buzzing alarm to go off every morning, when the velvet gray sky was being caressed with the first shy pink blush of dawn, and he'd go back to his room or send Charlie up to his.

It was amazing. He'd never thought he had so much to say. He and Charlie could talk for hours, and if the notebook hadn't been there to remind him, Draco would have been hard-pressed to remember what they talked about. It was _everything_. Work, school, politics, childhood memories, whatever they wanted. Charlie would press Draco to write down what he'd done with Bill that day, because it helped Draco solidify the new knowledge when he revised it like that.

 _Tell me about dragons_ , Draco scrawled one night, handing the notebook back to where Charlie was laying behind him.

Charlie chuckled, the sound low and rumbling in his broad chest (and Draco's mouth went dry, he wouldn't have suspected how that sound would effect him) and his eyes sparkled when he turned his head to look at him. "You really want me to keep you up all night with a lecture?"

 _Don't tell me about_ _dragons_ _,_ Draco corrected himself with a huff of air, _tell me about why you like them. Why you work with them._

Charlie smiled. "The job fell in my lap, honestly," he shrugged, snuggling back into Draco's pillows, laying on his back and stretching out his legs. "A dragon built a nest near the school, and they didn't want to move her or the egg, so the refuge sent a couple of their people out. They were around for a few months, living in Hogsmeade and protecting the dragon and her nest. I remember being really impressed because they wouldn't let reporters nearby to take pictures. They wouldn't be bribed. But I hung about so often looking like a stray puppy that they started letting me see her. Apparently I wouldn't shut up and stop asking questions, so they just started indulging me. After the egg hatched, they let me help with moving the two of them to Romania. She knew my smell and she trusted me, so I was able to get closer than the other refuge employees they sent to assist. And when they were packing up, they said I had a job waiting for me when I finished school."

Draco had been watching Charlie speak, and now he saw the way his face tightened, the way his eyes darted toward the ceiling.

"I said, 'How's next month?' cheeky as you please, and they just laughed. But when I turned up the next month with a rucksack of clothes and no intention of being chased off, they let me stay. I've been there ever since."

Draco knew the part he was leaving out. He'd been running away from home. (So much more brave than Draco, he knew what he was, what he wanted, and he'd be damned if he wasn't going to get it. Brave or foolish or who knew what, but it made Draco's chest tight with sympathy and somehow with _need_.)

He hesitated, his pen hovering over the page, touching down and leaving an ink blot, but finally he wrote it. _Did you really like dragons that much, or did you just want to leave?_

Charlie never seemed to get angry, and maybe that was why Draco felt like a cat in the sun when he was around the man. You could say things that, in Draco's experience, led to anger that was cold and immovable as stone, or glittering with sharp edges and pain. But when you said them to Charlie, he just became thoughtful. It was safe here, basking in the warmth of this man. (His skin, his temperment, his smile . . . they were all golden light after a lifetime of cold marble shadows.)

"It was both," he said eventually. His knee folded and he bent his leg, resting it against Draco's back to communicate that things were okay. Perhaps he could see Draco's tension. "I only had to be home for another month before I'd be back to school for another year, but I'm reckless and impulsive like that." A lazy smile, but there was no heart behind it. "I've been told by the kids that you're very aware of my family's financial situation." A nudge against his back to show he was teasing. (A sharp bite as he recalled all the times he'd been so superior about it, and now, _and now look at him_.) "I thought it was stupid, them trying to find tuition money for a kid they didn't even like, not when I had other places to go. It was stupid of me, I'm sure. I mean, what if the refuge had said no? But they didn't. And don't get me wrong, I was _thrilled_. There's a reason I wouldn't leave them alone when Persephone was nesting. I _love_ dragons. I love working with them."

Draco didn't need a notebook to make Charlie go on. He just leaned back for a moment against his upraised knee, the pressure of his back a request to continue.

"They're so different from us. They have a society that's completely unique. I know you probably don't care, I've done this often enough where I start talking and people's eyes just glaze over . . ."

He was right; Draco didn't care about the societal structure of dragon colonies one whit. _Tell me your favourite thing about them_.

"It's exhilarating," Charlie grinned. His eyes were fixed on the ceiling again, but they were dreamy now instead of hard-edged. "You have to _work_ for it, you know? They don't trust you, they don't like you, they don't want anything to do with you. They're gorgeous and they're really fascinating, but if you want to learn anything about them, you have to make them trust you first. It's hard work. It can take weeks. Sometimes you never succeed at all. And when you _do_ . . . It is the most _amazing_ feeling. It's like scoring the winning goal in the final game of the season. You've truly _accomplished_ something."

Draco felt something warm spreading itself through his chest and stomach, looking at Charlie's dreamy expression. Charlie never got mad, but it was hard to see him truly happy, either. This was—

Draco abruptly turned back around, his heart hammering. This was dangerous territory. The kind he was not entering. This. Was. Innocent. They were just talking, because . . . _because_. He'd leave, eventually. Both of them would. And he couldn't just get all these fuzzy feelings when Charlie smiled, because— _because_. (Not thinking, he liked not thinking, it was so much better to just never think.) Charlie eventually moved further away from him and Draco finally felt like he could breathe.

Then one night, when they were laid out side-by-side with their feet sliding over each other's legs:

 _You're stuck in a really weird place in this war, but_ Charlie just left it there for a long time. Draco's stomach was clenching into knots, but he nudged Charlie with his shoulder to make him continue. (Draco's shoulder was bare, and Charlie's shirt brushed against his skin, and he shivered and felt his knotted stomach do a flip.) _I just want you to know that you can be honest. With me, anyway. It's not like I'm going to take this and show it to everyone._

Draco just lifted his eyebrows. He was going to make Charlie say it, because he hadn't wanted to bring it up to begin with and if Charlie wanted to talk about it then he was damn well going to suffer for it.

_I just want to know what you think. I'm sure you still feel the same way about pureblood status, but I want to know what you think about this war._

(Hate, there was so much hate in this war and he hated it and he hated himself for the role he'd played and he hated where it was going and he hated his family for what they'd become. All that hate filled him up and made him choke and he just wanted to stay away from it, and this was as far from the hate as he could get, right now, these lazy nights heaped on a bed with Charlie pressed warm and comforting against him. This war was nothing but hate, and he wanted nothing to do with it.)

A porcelain doll whose love had not been silent in one very key moment that saved his life. She was set away on a high shelf, where he could not reach her. Not right now. But later . . .?

 _I don't know_ , he scrawled, pen harsh and catching on the page. He wondered if even his pen was betraying him when he added _I don't like fighting. I'm sorry— I don't know anything anymore._

"That's okay," Charlie said aloud. "You gave up a lot just to be here. Take your time."

Draco's hand rose, unbidden (because he didn't _mean it_ , of course he didn't because this time together was nothing, nothing but a way to pass the time) and cupped Charlie's cheek, relishing the rasp of gold-red stubble as he brushed over Charlie's chin. He kissed him, long, slow, heavy.

Charlie just stared at him.

 _I paid for it_ Draco wrote, a smirk on lips that throbbed with the need for more. _I paid for_ _you_ _so_

That was when Charlie rolled over onto him, pinning down his wrists and trapping his legs with his knees, snogging him with abandon. At a loss for other options, Draco had to fight by biting down on Charlie's lip, so hard that his mouth filled with a coppery tang and he felt instant remorse for breaking skin—

Charlie made a growling noise and thrust his tongue deeply into Draco's mouth. A groan was building up behind its barrier in Draco's throat, his hips were thrusting upward in spite of himself—

(wrong, this is wrong, _Charlie_ was the one who said you're too young, and you don't even know what you're doing, not about this or any of it—)

Draco went limp, as still as he possibly could. His head fell to the side.

"What," Charlie breathed as the kiss lost power. His eyes were dark and almost angry, but he allowed Draco to slither out from under him. Draco could have wept as he reached for the notebook, because never had this loss of speech seemed like more of a disability.

 _Not now_ he wrote quickly. After buying himself a moment with that, he wrote more cautiously _We'll both regret it if we do this now. I have a lot to figure out first._

Charlie nodded slowly, looking sheepish.

 _I wasn't trying to tease._ _I never—_ no that was wrong— _I didn't_ _know—_ no, too naive— _I didn't think_

Charlie's hand fell over his. "I know. It's fine. And you're right. I'll try to be a little more careful."

After two weeks, with his head pillowed on Charlie's flat stomach and his handwriting skewed from trying to write while holding a new notebook in the air:

 _Why do you want me anyway? I mean, I'm not that good-looking_ (fishing for compliments was a time-honored tradition in flirting, everyone knew that) _Your brother apparently thinks I'm 'a skinny twerp who's too much of a coward to make a decision and too selfish to admit it' although that horrible cow he's dating seems to think I'm 'changing' —urgh— and Potter thinks I'm not even worth wasting the breath to talk about_

Charlie plucked the notebook out of his hands and threw it almost casually on the floor.

"Don't."

Draco sat up, huffing out a breath to make his displeasure clear. (Was that all he could do, really? Was he so pathetic, these days?)

"It doesn't matter what they think, unless it's what you think of yourself."

Draco blinked at him.

"Is it?" Charlie challenged. " _Is_ that what you think of yourself? A cowardly, selfish twerp who isn't worth anyone's regard?

(Yes, yes, always, all his life—)

"If that's not what you want, then don't be that," Charlie said fiercely, all but baring his teeth. "You ask yourself, Draco: why are you here? Why are you changing? Really?"

He was constantly attempting to make it true that he didn't care what Charlie thought of him. If Charlie wanted to believe Potter and the Weasel and think he was some dreaded enemy, then fine. Draco would go on doing what he was doing, regardless. He was doing this for _himself_ , not for anybody else, and he told himself that every day so that by constant repetition he might believe it.

He felt tears burning behind his eyes. He just wanted to know. He wanted to know what Charlie thought of him. This was the man he'd rescued, the man who kept rescuing him, and he lusted over him and felt like a different person in his presence—and was it so much to ask, to know Charlie's opinion? Unless . . . Unless Charlie's bluster was covering up his opinion. That he _did_ think of Draco that way.

He nodded to indicate he understood. He went to retrieve his notebook, but froze there on the ground. Was he skinny? Charlie must be used to _men_ , of the sort that liked to tame dragons for a living, and Draco must look laughable compared to that. Pale and thin and weak and not even shaving yet . . .

He had taken his shirt off because it was so hot up here in the summers, but now he pulled it on, buttoning it up with trembling fingers. It took no great effort not to cry. He'd been not-crying his whole life.

"Draco, what are you . . .? Are you angry with me? What are you doing?"

Draco didn't know what to say, and trying to find something to write down in this stupid pathetic notebook—this _tiresome_ , _wretched_ notebook— no, he was going to go downstairs and go to bed.

"Wait!" Charlie commanded him, and then the door wouldn't open. He turned around to see a wand in Charlie's hand. He clenched his jaw and pulled out his own wand. So far, his non-verbal capabilities were limited to the lights and levitation. He'd managed a non-verbal _Accio_ once or twice. Unlocking a door, it seemed, was beyond him. He threw both wand and notebook on the floor and glared at Charlie with ice in his eyes.

"You're not storming out of here all upset with me when I don't even know what I did. Pick that thing up and talk to me."

Draco snatched it off the floor and wrote his response so forcefully that he tore through a few pages and had to start over.

_Aren't you sick of this yet? Go find somebody normal!_

That was all he could do. His hand was shaking as he raised it to his face, blotting away tears as they formed, before they turned into real crying.

"Aw, Draco . . . What's gotten into your head? What d'you mean, normal?"

 _I mean I can't even say this out loud!_ (He hadn't known, not until just at that moment, how desperately he'd wanted to be able to speak to Charlie, to him more than anyone else. He hadn't known how terribly undesirable it made him feel until he wanted to shrink away from his own words spilling onto this paper.) _If you thought I was just an ugly skinny twerp you should have said so! Just_ _go away_ _I don't need you to be with me just because you think you owe me_

Charlie grabbed his wrist before he could get any further, and Draco's mouth curled up in a silent snarl. First he wanted him to write, then he stopped him? _"Make up your mind!"_ he mouthed at him furiously.

Charlie's hand was warm and careful when it came to rest on his chest. "Draco," he said, and Draco's head snapped up from looking at his hand to gape at him—he heard _laughter_ in his voice and he had _better not think this was funny_ or by Merlin Draco would _rend him limb from limb—_ "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking. I was upset that you were listening to what those little gits think of you— Merlin, I keep forgetting _they're_ the ones who are your peers, not me. Of course you'd listen to them. And I keep forgetting how it is when you're sixteen. I guess you need me to say this, huh?" A flash of teeth, a sparkle in his eyes. "I think you're bloody gorgeous, Draco. You could stand more of Mum's cooking, don't get me wrong, but you are _exactly_ —" and here Charlie's eyes raked over him, top to bottom, making his toes tingle and his ears burn— "what I like. And when you feel a little more sorted, I will be here."

" _Why?"_ Draco said, even though he didn't think Charlie would see it with his face turned down and his wide eyes fixed on the worn carpet.

Charlie's hand went under his chin and raised his face. "You paid for me, didn't you?" he smiled. There was a brief, soft kiss, and then Charlie took him by the shoulders and turned him around. "Go on with you. You're too tired for this."

He was very tired indeed after a long day of helping Molly clean the attic followed by a long evening of study with Bill. That didn't stop a thrill from running through him when Charlie gave him an overly-familiar smack on the rear end as he stepped out the door.

"Oh, and for future reference?" Charlie drawled. "If you're going to bite me, be prepared for the consquences."

Draco swallowed thickly as Charlie shut the door on him.

 

* * *

 

Draco had been at the Weasleys nearly the whole summer, and the other teenagers were all talking about getting to Diagon Alley to shop for their school supplies. He had received his own letter detailing the results of his OWLs and listing his textbooks for the upcoming year. It had been addressed to his temporary room in the Burrow, and Draco had felt sick wondering how many people knew where he was. Did his father know? Did the Dark Lord? Would they consider it worthwhile to come for him? Would they hurt this family? (They ought to be prepared for that, they'd made themselves public enemies of that side, and it wouldn't be Draco's fault if anything happened to them, it just _wouldn't be.)_

He wasn't going back to school. He already knew that, had known that the whole summer. It wasn't really an option. How could he go back to the Slytherin dormitory? If he wasn't sold out and taken back to the Dark Lord (unlikely), then he'd still have to face them, a traitor and all but unable to defend himself. (He'd be hard-pressed to say which would be worse.)

He might never have said a word. He might have continued this ghostly half-life in the Weasleys home forever. He might have, if he hadn't overheard Bill and Charlie talking. If he hadn't shamelessly eavesdropped on their conversation, as they cleared the gnomes out of the garden. He'd been told they were less of a problem during the winter.

"You know," Bill grunted, yanking a gnome up feet-first and flinging the creature, "if you were anyone else, I'd just have to remind you that he's a Slytherin. You just _have_ to have a thing for Slytherins."

"Who says I have a thing for Slytherins?" Charlie asked innocently, hissing when a gnome bit his finger. He swung the poor thing in a circle as he tossed it out of the garden.

Bill snorted, flicking his ponytail back over his shoulder. "You did, you pillock. What were you? Fifth year? Not a lot's changed since then."

Charlie just grinned at the reminder. "Well, they're exciting," he said, still sounding amiable. "Element of danger, you know me."

"You don't seriously go for them just because you like danger."

"No." Charlie's face became pensive. "Never really tried to analyze this before. You know what I like about them? They're always _thinking_. I never do that, and it works for me, but I like it. They're usually about ten steps ahead of everybody else. I mean, hell, you noticed that the kid had Mum wrapped around his little finger by his second day conscious? You think that was a coincidence?"

"Heh. Never thought it was. I didn't say he's an idiot."

"I should hope not. You spend enough time tutoring him."

"You're about to ask me why I'm doing it, but you're a stubborn git and you're not going to."

Charlie grinned in answer.

"Fine," Bill sighed, using his sleeve to wipe sweat from his forehead. "Because I can see where things are going with you two. He's a spoiled little brat right now, but he's got potential. The problem is this damn war. He's got one foot on each side of it, now."

"I know that," Charlie said peevishly. "I'm trying to avoid that whole topic with him. Pushing him about it is hardly a good idea."

Bill pursed his lips. "He's got talent, Charlie. For curse-breaking, I mean. I think we've seen just how hard he's willing to work."

"You're trying to get somewhere with this. Is this payback for me not asking? Because you're a bastard."

"You remember Paolo?"

"Your friend from Brazil?"

"Yep."

"The one who gets sent all over South and Central America as a curse-breaker?"

"That's the one."

"What _about_ him?"

"I could send him there."

Charlie stopped working at gaped at him.

"Malfoy, I mean. I could send him to work with Paolo. His last apprentice just started working on his own, and he asked me if I know anybody who's interested in training under him. I could get the kid out of here until the war is over."

"What— why would you—"

"For _you_. I'm doing this for _you_. Because you want him, and I want you to be happy for once in your life. If I can get him away from all the reasons I'm suspicious of him, give him some room to grow—and grow _up_ , for Merlin's sake— then maybe he'll turn out to be a decent guy."

"You're doing it . . . for me?"

"Who's been the one person you can talk to about shit in your life, huh?" Bill demanded, grabbing Charlie into a headlock. "I'm doing this because I love you, you stupid oaf." After giving Charlie a noogie and receiving a punch to the kidney, he let him go. "It'll be a few years, you know. He'll need to make a name for himself, and he'll need to wait out the war. Can you wait that long? I mean, honestly, Chuckles. You're a grown man, and you've got a life and other guys you're seeing . . . he's just a kid. He might not take that well. Are you ready for that?"

"I'm a grown man and you're still calling me Chuckles?"

"Heh. I'll call you whatever I want. You're still my stupid little brother."

"I'll talk to him. I don't want him to think this is something that it's not. I mean, he's not my first love. And look at me: I'm a mess. I don't want to be his first anything. I can't handle that responsibility. I'm not getting engaged to him, here. It's just . . . When the dust settles, I'm willing to see where this goes."

Bill frowned at Charlie, gnomes forgotten and running for the hills while the men were distracted. "Why do you like him so much?"

"He can't be broken. I don't think I'll be able to tame him. And I _love_ that about him."

Charlie touched his lower lip, and it was obvious to Draco that he was thinking about the bite. He blushed, even though no one was looking at him. That had been foolish, perhaps, but he hadn't realized how much Charlie would enjoy it. There was a lot he didn't know, clearly. Things that Charlie didn't want to teach him. He wanted Draco to learn elsewhere. He didn't want Draco to spend a couple of years in hiding, keeping his nose clean. It sounded like he was expecting Draco to go off into the wilderness and break curses and apparently have sex with strangers. It wasn't even that he couldn't tame him, he just didn't want to.

A strange thrumming began in his body, his blood pulsing. He felt good. Almost drunk. He didn't feel scared. He just felt _alive_. He needed to be worried about his inability to communicate, but all he could think at the moment was that he could do any non-verbal magic required when he felt like this.

He pulled out his notebook and scribbled a note. He stepped around the corner and held it up for the two of them to see.

 _I'll go_ , it said. _I'll go but you'd better be here when I come back._


	4. Entwined

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter with sex. Also, listen to "Crash Into Me" by the Dave Matthews Band while reading, because I listened to it while writing.

Charlie, Hal, and Duarte always sat at the same table in the pub when they weren't working, and that was where they sat now. Duarte kept buying Charlie more beer, because he thought Charlie was depressed or something. Charlie glowered down into his drink and thought he probably was.

Three years. Three years of cruel, teasing letters. He sent them every month or two. The apprenticeship was going well, and Charlie should expect no less from a genius like him. (He must be working his arse off, Charlie fretted, not sleeping or eating enough . . .) He'd been injured at an Incan temple, but had manfully ignored it long enough to finish his mission. (It was probably a paper cut and he'd probably whimpered like a child, Charlie thought fondly, he was not the type to suffer in silence.) He was moving to Argentina for a while, because Paolo wanted him to take a couple of classes there. (That was good, he needed a break, he'd been working so hard.) The boys in Argentina were gorgeous, especially a particular youth named Santiago. (And gorgeous Santiago's hands were all over him, weren't they? How had Charlie not considered the sick feeling he'd get, thinking about someone else touching him?)

_Three years. Three years of writing those cruel, teasing letters and missing him until it hurt. Draco knew it was mean to make him worry so, but it was also fun. And sometimes, there would be a letter in reply. His communication was always open and jovial and holding his words was like holding a piece of that candle-lit warmth that Draco missed so much. Draco was constantly staying up all night to study and work, but never to talk the way they had done together. That belonged to him, and him alone. Dancing, yes, and drinking, swapping study notes or greedy sloppy kisses on Draco's beat-up second-hand furniture . . . But never golden summer nights baring his soul. Santiago had never seen him cry. He'd only had it for a few short weeks out of his entire life, but Draco missed his company so much it hurt._

"There he goes again," Hal said in disgust.

Charlie looked up from his drink. "Me?"

"Yes, you," Duarte said, rolling his eyes. "You been, what is that phrase, off your feed, my brother. Ever since that trip to see family during the war."

How was Charlie supposed to have explained what had happened to him? He'd just called it a trip home and lived with the crap they gave him for leaving without saying anything, and for coming back too quiet.

"Emil even says that lately, you two don't . . . you know," Hal waved his hand to encompass Charlie and Emil.

They were the only two gay men working for the refuge, and quite possibly the only two in all of wizarding Romania. They had an arrangement. Lately, Charlie hadn't cared to take advantage of that. It was really, really, really not any of Hal or Duarte's business.

_Draco had been introduced to many things by Michael, never telling him why out of an entire continent of sexy accents and sun-kissed skin he'd wanted his first time to be with a proper Englishman. There were many things he did not tell Michael, and that was fine. There were many things Michael did not tell him, either. It was just an arrangement. Things with Santiago weren't complicated, either. Draco liked things to be simple when he knew they wouldn't last.  
_

" _More?" the bartender grunted, waving the bottle. He probably spoke perfectly good English, living as he did among so many foreigners, which meant he was just rude and taciturn. There was a certain nostalgia about this kind of barkeep, after Draco had gotten so used to the skimpy outfits and effervescent personalities in disco clubs. So Draco smiled and nodded, and took another drink gladly. Liquid courage._

"You very need to get laid, brother," Duarte said with confidence.

Charlie grimaced, because it was so true. Too bad the person he kept thinking about was on the other side of an ocean, living it up with _Santiago_ , the smooth Argentinean bastard.

"Please tell me you've at least noticed the guy at the bar," Hal said. "He's perfect for you. If you haven't at least been checking out his ass all night, I'm going to take you to the hospital."

Charlie hadn't so much as glanced up in an hour, but just to make Hal happy, he did. And damn, but Hal was right. That had to be the world's most perfect butt. Attached to a slender, lithe body, the owner of which had shirked a robe in favour of tight pants tucked into dragon-skin boots and a loose white shirt that showed flashes of smooth golden skin and was topped by a head of hair that had been baked in the sun so long it was nearly white but for the golden highlights. Despite himself, he was interested. Very, very interested. Straight guys did not wear tight pants with dragon-skin boots. Oh, tonight was going to be a good night.

Then the golden beauty turned around and Charlie stopped breathing.

_He hadn't changed. He didn't tan in the sun, he just freckled, and he'd clearly been spending a lot of time outdoors recently if the spray over his nose and cheeks was anything to go by. If anything, his chest and shoulders had gotten even more broad. There was a new burn scar on his neck that was worrisome, framed by red hair that badly needed a trim. Blue eyes had become more dull, maybe with drink or maybe with thoughtfulness. He seemed more serious and less playful than Draco remembered._

_Perhaps it was time to stop spying on him._

_Draco had waited, after the war had ended. Waited to hear about the safety of his own family and of the Weasley family. Waited until he'd made up his mind that he_ _ did _ _want to see his mother, but not yet. Waited until he'd finished his studies with Paolo, waited until he was able to convince Santiago that Merlin himself could not keep Draco in Argentina and Santiago had not actually done anything wrong._

_Then he'd come straight to Romania. Walked into the pub where he'd heard the dragon-keepers liked to drink, and sat down and started looking for Charlie. He wasn't hard to find. It was just a matter of working up the courage to do anything. A lot had changed in three years. Draco had changed. He wasn't a spoiled and scared child anymore. He'd_ _ worked _ _to grow up, and it wasn't just the callouses on his palms that told him how far he'd come._

_Well, if he'd come this far, it would be stupid to stop here._

_He turned around._

_Charlie was already looking at him, lust in his eyes, although now shock was bleeding into his expression. Draco held back a laugh at the completely dumbstruck look on his face. Draco had left as a skinny little ghost, but the sunshine and hard work had agreed with him all too well. He'd stopped worrying about whether or not he was attractive quite a while ago._

_He'd been teasing him by letter for three years. He could hardly stop teasing_ _ now _ _. He took a notebook from his shirt pocket._

He even walked differently, by Merlin. What had they been feeding him over there? He was taller, tanned, graceful, confident— he was bloody sinful, he was. Charlie could do nothing but stare. He didn't even feel stupid for doing it, because Hal and Duarte were staring, too.

A page was torn from the ever-present little notebook and held up for the table to see.

_I believe you gentleman have something that belongs to me._

The other two raised their eyebrows, and the golden head just nodded in Charlie's direction. He had a wicked smirk on his lips. They both turned to Charlie with awe.

Charlie stood up. "Draco Malfoy, you utter bastard," he breathed out. "Would a letter have killed you?"

Draco smirked and scrawled out _Who knows? Why take the risk?_

"I'm going to kill you. You almost gave me a heart attack. Here I was feeling guilty for staring at your arse, and it was your arse."

Draco's shoulders shook with silent laughter. Then he wrote another note and dropped the open notebook onto the table.

 _Goodnight, gentleman. I_ _might_ _give him back tomorrow_.

He hooked a single finger into Charlie's collar and pulled him forward. It was as effective as dropping a lasso over him and dragging him out. Charlie followed him without a word, eyes traveling over the nape of his neck, down his back, and getting caught once again on his butt before moving over his legs, and finally, as they exited out into the street and were sharply bitten by the autumn wind, he looked back up into Draco's face. Draco smiled, and Charlie held his breath. It wasn't some sickly twist of his lips anymore, it was an actual smile and it was wicked and divine. Then Draco raised his eyebrows imperiously.

Charlie suddenly realized that Draco was expecting to be taken to his place. Oh. Well, then, that answered that question. And, wow. He was sure of himself, wasn't he?

_He didn't know how long he could keep up his act, especially when his heart was beating out of his chest. His pulse was thundering in his ears, with nerves and lust alike. Three years. Three years of wondering if this still meant anything. Wondering if all it was ever meant to be was simply the catalyst for Draco to grow up. It was possible that their time together was to be nothing more than a fond memory, but he hoped—oh, he_ _ hoped _ _._

_Charlie hadn't wanted to be his first anything, Draco remembered. He hadn't been. Not his first crush, not his first love, not his first partner. But he was the only one that Draco had truly wanted. This was the man he'd chosen, and by Merlin he was going to have him. Draco hadn't cared if anyone had loved him, desired him, or respected him—just Charlie. He thought he could live his entire life on one approving smile from this man. He'd worked damned hard for this. So it made sense that he was so nervous he was practically shaking, didn't it?_

_Charlie lived in a tiny flat above a bakery. He drew his wand and started a fire in the hearth, and Draco shivered as he glanced around. Charlie's home was exactly what he'd hoped for. Cramped with too many things in too small a space. It was a cozy, haphazard patchwork of overstuffed furniture covered in several days' worth of newspaper and a few hand-knitted jumpers that had been shucked off and left lying about. Charlie was back-lit by that warm glow, looking just as he remembered—hard and broad and strong, his hair curling around his neck and framing his confident grin._

He didn't remember the last time he'd felt so nervous about something like this. Why did it bother him, Draco being here in his house? It was hardly the first time he'd had a guy over. But Charlie's heart was pounding as he stared at the young man—the light was playing across the angles of his face and glittering in his sharp eyes, and still that wicked smile was on his lips. But Draco's hands were curling into fists, hiding themselves in the loose shirtsleeves disguising his slender wrists, so Charlie couldn't see that he was nervous, too.

He wanted this.

He wanted this to work, more than anything. He wanted this to be good, and he wanted them to wake up tomorrow morning knowing that they were together. Charlie was tired of games and tired of arrangements and tired of how cold his warm little flat sometimes felt. He wanted to be with someone. He wanted it to be Draco, who was so hard to impress and so hard to gain the trust of. Draco, who was the greatest challenge of his life. Draco, whose feet tangling with his and whose hair tickling his shoulder had made him feel more right than he ever had in his life.

"Why don't you sit down?" Charlie asked suddenly, shoving a pile of freshly-laundered trousers off the couch. Draco didn't move, just followed him with his eyes. "Get comfortable, so we can talk. I want to hear more about your work. Er, do you want something to drink? Or—"

He had turned to the kitchenette, to see if he had any clean drinking glasses, and suddenly he was being shoved violently forward and spun around. His back hit the wall with a _thump_ just as Draco's lips crashed onto his. It hurt. But he kissed back anyway. Draco's hands were on the wall on either side of Charlie's head, bracing himself as he leaned forward. He grabbed Draco's shoulders and hung on for dear life as Draco's punishing kiss drew him further and further in.

_He pulled his head back, wondering if he'd just made a huge mistake. Charlie chuckled, smoky with drink and lust. He touched a two fingers to his lips and they came away bloody. He seemed to be waiting for something, just looking down at his bloodied fingers. Draco didn't know what he was doing anymore, but he lowered his head and flicked his tongue tentatively over Charlie's fingertip. Charlie inhaled a quick, shocked breath, and Draco slowly drew Charlie's finger into his mouth, sliding his lips further down, taking in the coppery tang of Charlie's blood. Charlie's hands tightened on his shoulders. It should have been a warning, but Draco's eyelids were fluttering closed as he focused on the play of his tongue over Charlie's skin._

_Charlie swung Draco around and slammed him into the wall, reversing their positions, making a framed picture of the Weasleys rattle above their heads and making the logs shift in the fireplace and release a series of loud popping noises. Draco had time to gasp before Charlie's kisses began in earnest. He tried to push Charlie back—he_ _ liked _ _being the one doing the pinning—but it was like trying to move a brick wall. He writhed, thinking he could slide away, thinking to tease a bit more. Charlie grabbed him by the wrists and pinned him to the wall, spreading his legs wide and trapping Draco with his body. With his wrists pinned beside his head and with no way to get a good foothold, Draco didn't have the leverage to get away._

_Well, he wasn't going to let Charlie just_ _ win _ _._

_He turned his head, began trailing kisses over Charlie's neck. Not soft, sweet kisses. Draco had discovered he had no affinity for soft or sweet. These were sucking kisses, with teeth. He nipped his way down Charlie's throat, making him shudder, and finally his grip relaxed enough that Draco got a hand free. He slipped that hand under Charlie's shirt, circling around his side and teasing lightly at the skin on Charlie's lower back._

_When Charlie was putty in his hands, Draco returned the kiss to his mouth, slowly turning as he did so, until Charlie was the one facing the wall again. Draco began to pull back, but he kept Charlie's lower lip between his teeth for a moment, finally releasing it only when Charlie made a noise of pained protest._

Charlie didn't want to know how Draco had developed this particular skill. He just wanted more of it. He hadn't even realized Draco had gotten the upper hand again until he started feeling like his lip was about to tear off.

"So you like to fight, do you?" Charlie whispered with a fierce grin that made his abused lips throb.

Draco didn't smile back. His eyes were huge and dark and glittering. Charlie pushed himself away from the wall, and the forward momentum carried them all the way to the tiny bedroom. They fell onto the bed, Draco underneath him. Draco's jaw jutted out in determination, and he writhed his hips, trying to buck Charlie off. Charlie shivered with anticipation. He used his knees to pin Draco down and began to strip him of the loose white shirt. Distracted, the blond reached up and began to peel Charlie's leather jacket from his shoulders.

_Draco honestly wanted Charlie to win, now, he_ _ wanted _ _that muscled body to pin him down and overpower him, but he wasn't going to make it_ _ easy _ _. While Charlie was busy with two pairs of boots, Draco was sitting up. As soon as his pants came off, he pushed Charlie down and began sinuously trailing kisses over his stomach. He puffed out warm air as he moved further downward, sliding his hands over Charlie's thighs, feeling the muscles bunching under his touch, feeling the light fuzz of his hair._

_He curved his hands around the backs of Charlie's legs, lifting him slightly as he moved to grip Charlie's firm arse and lowered his head a bit further, nuzzling his nose in the curling hairs_ _ just above _ _—_

Charlie finally realized that Draco was just distracting him from his aim of dominating the younger man. So he reached down and got a grip on Draco's forearms and dragged him up, much as it pained him to do so. Draco resisted, but Charlie was stronger, thus Draco was pulled inexorably up, his smooth skin gliding over Charlie's erection and making him mutter incoherently. Finally, he'd dragged Draco up onto his torso. He slid his fingers into Draco's silken hair, and took a deep breath before he initiated a long, steady kiss, which he maintained as he slowly turned them and moved Draco underneath him.

Draco looked up with his eyes glazed and his lips parted in a satisfied, silent _ah_. Then they widened as he realized what Charlie had done. His hands lifted up to push Charlie off, but Charlie grabbed them. He put up a furious fight, and Charlie knew he didn't want to do this  all night. The solution came to him disturbingly quickly. He looped the bed sheet around Draco's wrists and tied him to the bed post. Draco's eyes were huge, but Charlie couldn't find anger in that snapping, sparking gaze.

"I win," he breathed, leaning down to kiss him.

Draco bit his shoulder hard. Charlie closed his eyes and shuddered with pleasure. Draco looked surprised for a moment, then the sheen of sheer power filled his eyes.

They took their time getting there, and by the time they joined, Charlie's shoulder was raw and Draco's wrists were bruised. The snap of his hips drove Draco hard into the mattress, but Draco strained against his bonds and arched himself up, fighting to be the one to set the pace.

_The muscles of his thighs were trembling with need, with burning need and with the beginnings of exhaustion from his fight. He was drunk with it: with desire, with pain, with pleasure, with the taste of Charlie's blood, with the lust he saw every time he put up resistance._

_Charlie filled him up and made him shudder, his hands clenching into the sheet that bound his arms over his head, his stomach tight and coiled and just_ _needing,_ _and his ability to tease and pretend just fell away. He gasped for air._

" _Yes," he whispered, his eyes rolling back._

_Charlie stopped and stared down at him. "Did you just . . .?"_

" _Don't_ _stop_ _, you idiot."_

" _But you— you found a spell! You can speak! When did you—"_

" _Later_ _," Draco hissed, writhing his body and rolling his hips up. "Hurry," he pleaded. "Oh, please, just hurry."_

_Rather than continuing, Charlie licked his lips and gazed down on him in awe. Draco was flattered, certainly, but he_ _ needed _ _and he needed_ _ now _ _. He began moving again, slowly setting the pace. He clenched down on Charlie, squeezing him and making him gasp for air. By reflex, the man began moving again._

" _Yes," Draco whispered softly, rocking his hips. "Yes."_

_Charlie licked his lips again, staring with hunger at the way Draco's throat moved when he spoke._

" _Charlie," he hissed out._

_Charlie shuddered as though Draco had bitten him again. Draco couldn't help his grin as he continued moving, driving Charlie to move faster again. Faster still. Yes. Oh, yes._

" _Charlie," he said again, and felt another shiver go over the bigger man's spine. "Charlie!"_

_Charlie climaxed to the sound of his own name in Draco's voice. His lover was pathetic, Draco thought with a drugged sort of fondness as Charlie let out a guttural groan and slumped over Draco, spent._

" _Hey," Draco drawled._

_Charlie looked at him with glazed eyes._

" _Get back to work."_

He was violent and demanding and power-hungry and selfish and he had a voice. Charlie shuddered when he heard it. Draco's voice was crisp and smooth. Charlie had heard him speak once, for a moment, three years ago. He'd sounded broken, helpless. This voice and this man—were anything but that. "Get back to work," he said.

Charlie did as he was told.

Draco panted, turning his head back and forth. Charlie was obeying—nice and slowly.

"I'm going to kill you," Draco gasped.

Charlie just laughed. By the time Draco came, he was jerking at his captured wrists and writhing around in agony, and he bucked his hips up with a wordless cry that was somehow even better than the sound of Charlie's name.

After that, Charlie was commanded to untie him. He did, but then he laid down, stretching his body out beside Draco's, and hoped they would fall asleep this way because he wanted to wake up with Draco in his arms. He gently kissed Draco's raw, bruised wrists. Draco just smirked at his bite wounds. Oh, yes. This was what he'd wanted. Draco wasn't kind and he wasn't generous. He was exactly what Charlie wanted.

_Draco curved his body against Charlie's, unashamed to lie beside him like this. He looked damned sexy naked in the firelight and he knew it. His wrists ached, but then Charlie's shoulder would probably have to be bandaged so his shirt collar wouldn't irritate it any further. He hadn't known what he'd wanted when he arrived in Romania, but he knew that this was it. This was_ _ exactly _ _it._

"I don't work tomorrow," Charlie said lazily.

Draco arched an eyebrow at him.

"Let's go say hi to my family."

Draco sighed, but Charlie just smiled at him.

"We have to tell them you're back."

Draco made a face.

_Molly would hug him and make him dinner. The house would be warm and full of light and it would smell like heaven. Draco liked this, here with just the two of them, but it didn't feel like "home" yet. It would. They would make it so. But for now, he knew where to go to get that feeling. Arthur and Molly ought to be well past their reservations now. Charlie running away and staying gone for so long had made them regretful, nearly losing him had made them start to change, and now that the war was over, Draco was going to make them love it. Love Draco. Just see if he didn't._

" _Do we have to?" he muttered._

Charlie wondered if Draco honestly thought he was fooling him, or if just the pretense was enough. Not that it mattered. Either way, he was bringing Draco home tomorrow. This time, it was for good.


End file.
